Truncation of the Secondary Concentrator CPC as Means to Cost Effective Beam-Down System

Akiba Segal Michael Epstein

Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

A central solar plant based on beam-down optics is composed of a eld of heliostats, a tower reector (hyperboloid mirror), and a ground receiver interfaced at its aperture with one or a cluster of secondary concentrators (compound parabolic concentrator). In previous publications, a method was presented, illustrating the correlation between the tower reector position and its size on one hand and the geometry, dimensions, and reective area of the secondary concentrator on the other hand, both related to the heliostat eld reective area. Obviously, when one wishes to reduce the size of a tower reector by locating it closer to the upper focal point, the image created at the lower focus will be broader, resulting in a larger secondary ground concentrator. The present paper describes a method for substantial decrease in the dimensions of the ground secondary concentrator cluster (and, implicitly, the concentrators area) via truncation and some geometrical corrections without signicant sacrice of the optical performance. This offers a method for cost effective design of future central solar plants, utilizing the beam-down optics. DOI: 10.1115/1.4001469

Introduction

The theoretical aspects of the beam-down optics have been described in a series of papers 17. A demonstration pilot system has been built and successfully operated at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The economical optimization of this type of solar plant depends essentially on sizing the tower reector TR and its height, and of the size of ground concentrator compound parabolic concentratorCPC. It has been demonstrated previously 5 that a close dependence exists between these two components so that a potential designer should take into consideration the linking optical parameters. In many cases, a decrease in the cost of one component implies an increase in the cost of another component or, alternatively, it requires some sacrice of the optical performance of the entire system. Since the CPC is an expensive per surface unit component of the beam-down optical system, our effort is aimed at analyzing the possibilities for reducing its size and cost with minimal energy penalty also CPC is required for regular tower optics when high working temperatures are desirable. A CPC installed on a tower top conguration can in principle also be truncated but this can be done in much limited extend compared with the beam-down optics. Two possibilities are evident: one is to simplify the CPC prole using the truncated pyramids so that the CPC will be composed of planar facets only and another is by approximation of a CPC by a number of truncated cones 8,9. This paper specically focuses on reducing the size of the CPC via its truncation 10 and reveals the optical results associated with this. It also demonstrates through an example of a large, commercial-scale system, the geometrical and energetic interrelations between the reective tower optical components. Economical optimization of the system is, however, beyond the scope of this paper due to the lack of reliable cost gures.
Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of ASME for publication in the JOURSOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received August 31, 2009; nal manuscript received February 11, 2010; published online June 11, 2010. Assoc. Editor: Manuel Romero Alvarez.

The optical characteristics of the TR have been described elsewhere 3,7 and are therefore only briey repeated here. A tower reector is an optical system comprised of a hyperboloidal mirror, having one of its two foci the upper one coinciding with the aim point of the heliostat eld and a lower focus near the ground. The beams from the heliostats directed to the aim point are reected downwards by the reector, to the lower focus. The image obtained at the lower focal plane is always magnied relative to the virtual image that could be obtained at the aim point as in a regular solar tower. As a result, the use of a secondary ground concentrator CPC in front of the ground receiver is necessary to recover and even enhance the original concentration level. It was shown 4 that when the TR is moved up, the image of the sun at the lower focus plane increases. As a result its area becomes smaller, but the ground CPC will be considerably larger.

NAL OF

Fig. 1 Geometry of the tower reector

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Table 2 Power balance for various TR radii Reference Maximum TR radius m TR area m2 Area reduced % Spillage TR MW Power TR MW Power relative to the reference % Enter CPCs MW Exit to receiver MW Absorbed in receiver MW Relative to reference case % 36.7 3180 0.6 70.9 63.5 60.0 51.3 35.9 35.4 35.1 3000 2870 2835 5.8 9.7 10.8 1.3 2.4 2.6 70.3 69.2 69.0 1.0 2.5 2.8 63.0 62.0 61.8 59.6 58.7 58.5 50.9 50.0 49.8 0.6 2.4 2.7

Fig. 2 Field design for 1108 heliostats with 110, 800 m2 reective surface area

The parameter characterizing the position of the TR relative to the distance between the two foci is the ratio fh. This is the ratio between the distance of the TR to the lower focus f 2, and the distance between the two foci za = f 1 + f 2, see Fig. 1. Obviously za / 2 fh za. The image magnication obtained at the CPC entrance plane is a quasi-linear for fh 0.75 increasing function of f 2 / f 1 5. As will be shown later, this condition is fullled in most cases. For smaller elds, the magnication versus f 2 / f 1 is larger than for large elds 4. These considerations are very important in estimating the CPC dimensions. For almost any position of the TR, the image obtained at the CPC entrance plane is practically too large for a single CPC to intercept the entire power arriving at

its entrance. Therefore the common practice is to split the single CPC into a cluster of smaller CPCs, e.g., seven units, one central, which collect the peak of radiation, surrounded by a ring of CPCs for exploiting the edge part of the image. For practical reasons, the seven CPCs can be identical. In this case all dimensions of each CPC unit are reduced by a factor of 7, and the total area of this cluster remains unchanged. In many cases it is useful to sacrice a tiny part of the sun energy by increasing the optical losses, for signicant reduction in the theoretical dimensions of the optical components. In Sec. 2 this statement is analyzed through an example of a large scale beam-down system.

Optical System

For exemplication, a central solar plant, based on beam-down optics, capable of delivering about 60 MWthermal into the receiver, is considered. A typical heliostat having an effective reective area of 100 m2 9.8 10.7 m2 is assumed. Using the method described in Ref. 7, a surrounding elliptical heliostat eld with 1108 heliostats is derived. It has a semi-axis of 320 m in the South-North direction and 360 m in the West-East, as shown in Fig. 2. The tower reector is positioned 120 m south of the ellipse center; therefore, the north part of the eld contains 762 heliostats

Table 1 Design parameters and power balance fh Position TR m Maximum TR radius m TR area m2 % of the eld reective area Height of each CPC m Entrance radius of a single CPC out of the seven m Exit radius of a single CPC m Acceptance angle deg CPC total area m2 % from the eld reective area Power reaching the TR net MW Absorption in TR+ attenuation in the atmosphere MW Spillage around the seven CPC units MW Enter CPC cluster MW Exiting the CPCs and entering the receiver MW -through the central CPC MW -through each peripheral CPCMW Concentration at the exit of the central CPC kW / m2 Concentration at the exit of a peripheral CPC kW / m2 Optical efciencya % Total losses from the receiverb MW -by reradiation MW -by natural convection MW Net in receiver MW Receiver efciency % System efciency %
a b

0.8 120 40.1 4240 3.9 14.8 4.53 1.77 23 2090 2.1 70.7 4.80 2.30 63.6 60.3 26.8 5.50 2700 570 71.5 8.2 5.2 3.0 52.1 86.4 61.8

0.83 124 36.7 3180 2.8 19.7 5.35 1.83 20 3160 2.8 70.9 4.80 2.60 63.5 60.0 25.8 5.70 2450 540 71.2 8.7 5.5 3.2 51.3 85.5 60.8

0.86 127.5 33.1 2220 2.0 27.2 6.58 1.98 17.5 5190 4.7 71.0 4.90 2.80 63.3 59.6 25.0 5.80 2030 470 70.6 10.2 6.5 3.7 49.4 82.9 58.6

Optical efciency: power exit from CPCs/power hit heliostats Losses from receiver: 1 calculated reradiation losses assuming that the receiver is a black body at a temperature of 1200 K; 2 losses by natural convection has been calculated based on an empirical correlation 11.

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Table 3 Power and optical loss analyses for truncated CPC for the case of fh = 0.83 Entrance radius of single CPC unit m 5.34 5.20 5.10 4.90 4.70 7 CPCs cluster area m 2 3160 2250 1990 1620 1350 Spillage around entrance MW 2.7 2.9 3.2 3.8 4.6 Total power entered the CPC cluster MW 63.5 62.7 62.4 61.8 61.0 Net power into the receiver after losses MW 51.3 51.0 50.7 50.2 49.5

CPC height m 19.7 untruncated 14.1 12.6 10.5 8.90

% from net line 1 100.0 99.4 98.9 97.8 96.5

and the south part contains only 346 heliostats the design has been performed for the Northern hemisphere at the latitude of 32 deg. The eld aim point upper focus is assumed to be at 145 m above the heliostat level, and the CPCs entrance plane lower focus is at a 20 m height. The design point is Equinox, Noon, with a direct normal insolation of 850 W / m2. The shadowing and blocking calculated for this design point are 0.2% and 1.8%, respectively. At these conditions, the solar radiation hitting the heliostat reective surface is about 84.3 MW. As mentioned in Ref. 5, in the case when the eld is not circular, the TRs hyperboloid axis must be tilted in order to obtain the verticality of the CPC cluster. When the eld is not circular, as in the present case, the image of the sun at the CPC entrance plane has an elliptic shape. As the TR axis is gradually tilted, a position can be found where the elliptic image becomes a circle; this is its desired inclination. The relative height of the TR signicantly affects the system performance. For illustration purposes, three cases have been studied as follows: fh = 0.8 TR at 120 m, 0.83 TR at 124 m, and 0.86 TR at 127.5 m. The calculated main geometrical dimensions and energetic balances are listed in Table 1. It can be seen that the TR area is highly sensitive to its position. Moving the TR by only about 4 m up or down that is about 3% from fh results in about 30% difference in its area. The case of fh = 0.83 was selected as the preferable one for the CPC truncation analysis. It can be seen from Table 1 that the optical efciency dened as the ratio between the power exiting the CPCs to the solar radiation hitting the heliostats is around 71%, which is an encouraging value. The main thermal losses from the receiver apertures assuming receiver effective temperature of 1200 K were assessed. and the result is thermal efciencies of 82.986.4%. The net power into the receiver is about 51 MW.

Sensitivity Analysis

The results listed in Table 1 concur with the theoretical calculated parameters. A sensitivity analysis pertinent to the dimensions of the TR and/or CPCs cluster was performed with respect to the penalties in the power collected and permitting larger spillage. For this analysis, the position of the TR corresponding to fh = 0.83 was taken. Reducing the theoretically calculated size of the TR, obviously results in an increase in the radiation spillage losses. The results are shown in Table 2. Analyzing the results shown in Table 2 compared with the results from Table 1 with the TR position corresponding to fh = 0.83, one can see that reducing the TR area by 10% increases the spillage losses and nally decreases the net power into the receiver by only 2.7%, while the CPCs total area will remain unchanged. The decrease in the TR area implies a decrease in the number of heliostats, especially those located farthest from the TR. This means that when designing such a central solar plant, the TR area is a result of a complex combination between the layout of the heliostat eld and the position of the TR relative to the aim point upper focus. Otherwise, reducing arbitrarily the TR area will render some heliostats ineffective. It is, however, imperative Journal of Solar Energy Engineering

to know what will be the inuence of a smaller TR on the net power into receiver. In Table 1 the CPCs heights and their total reective areas are presented for three cases. When the image on the CPCs entrance plane increases, the acceptance angles decrease and the dimensions of each CPC will increase. The CPC is an expensive component and reducing its dimensions will contribute substantially to lowering the price of the energy collected. Because of the shape of the upper part of the CPC, particularly for small acceptance angles as in the present cases, its top part can be truncated with only small penalty in spillage losses around the CPC cluster see Table 3. For example, it can be seen in Table 3 that a truncation of 7.1 m of the CPC theoretical height causes the reduction in the total concentrators area by 37%, while the power absorbed into receiver is reduced by only 1.1%. Moreover, when the truncation of the CPC reaches about half of its theoretical height 10.5 m instead of 19.7 m the total concentrator area will be reduced considerably by only 2.2% penalty in the power absorbed. Contrary to the situation of spillage around the TR where the power is lost without a practical solution for its recovery, here, the spillage can be collected in a separate system and used for, e.g., preheating purposes. In order to compensate for these losses, it is possible to add heliostats to the eld. Taking into account the optical efciency previously calculated, it is easy to estimate that about 100 heliostats are needed to compensate for the loss in this case. Since the CPC is signicantly more costly per unit surface area than the heliostat, an economical optimization can be done to determine the desirable extent of the truncation of the CPC. As an example, the CPC area is 23% of the total eld area see Table 1, but its cost is estimated as 45 times higher than the heliostats per unit area, mainly because of the demand for active cooling. Therefore, the truncation can have a signicant impact on the CPC and indirectly, on the cost of entire system. It should be noted again that the secondary optics CPC is needed also in a regular tower for operating temperatures above about 700 800 C, but the truncation option in this case is much more limited.

Conclusions

The potential economical impact of reducing the theoretical size of a TR and the truncation of the ground secondary concentrator CPC were analyzed. Specically a signicant reduction in the area of the CPC, which is an expensive part of this optical system, can be made with respect to the theoretically calculated size, with only minor penalty in the net power available to the nal process.

References
1 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 1997, Modeling of Solar Receiver for Cracking of Liquid Petroleum Gas, ASME J. Sol. Energy Eng., 119, pp. 4851. 2 Yogev, A., Kribus, A., Epstein, M., and Kogan, A., 1998, Solar Tower Reector Systems: A New Approach for High Temperature Solar Plants, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, 23, pp. 239245.

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3 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 1999, Comparative Performances of Tower-Top and Tower-Reector Central Solar Receivers, Sol. Energy, 65, pp. 207226. 4 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 1999, The Reective Solar Town as an Option for High Temperature Central Receivers, J. Phys. IV, 9, pp. 3.533.58. 5 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 2001, The Optics of the Solar Reector, Sol. Energy, 69, pp. 229241. 6 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 2003, Solar Ground Reformer, Sol. Energy, 75, pp. 479490. 7 Segal, A., and Epstein, M., 2008, Practical Considerations in Designing Large

8 9 10 11

Scale Beam-Down Optical System, ASME J. Sol. Energy Eng., 130, p. 011009. Timinger, A., Kirbus, A., Doron, P., and Ries, H., 2000, Faceted Concentrators Optimized for Homogeneous Radiation, Appl. Opt., 39, pp. 11521158. Timinger, A., Kribus, A., Ries, H., Smith, T., and Walther, M., 2000, Optical Assesment of Nonimaging Concentrators, Appl. Opt., 39, pp. 56795684. Winston, R., Minano, J. C., and Benitez, P., 2005, Nonimaging Optics, Elsevier Academic Press, Ch. 5.7, p. 81. Bejan, A., 1995, Convection Heat Transfer, Wiley, New York, p. 186.

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