Development of a New Methodology for Evaluation of Beam Accuracy and Optical Quality of Solar Central Receiver Systems

In central tower concentrated solar power plants, the concentrated flux distribution at the receiver is controlled by the aiming strategy of thousands of heliostats in the field to accomplish the specific requirements of solar-thermal conversion processes. The main goal of this work is to evaluate the reflected solar flux from a heliostat or from a group of heliostats on a calibration target. The solar flux map at the target receiver is constructed using the information embedded in a captured high dynamic range image of the evaluated scene. In the present article, a methodology has been proposed to evaluate the optical performance of solar central receiver systems in terms of beam accuracy and optical quality of reflected light on calibration target. The developed system is a simple, automatic and effective tool used to accurately analyse the reflected solar flux without limitations of previous methods, such as using specific type of calibration target. The capability of the present methodology for accurate analysis is demonstrated through experimental indoor and outdoor tests.