Universal field method for calculating heliostat fields of bagaceras-solar hybrid thermoelectric plants

Abstract

The work deals with the determination of the characteristics that a heliostat field must have of a plant for the generation of hybrid electricity from bagasse and solar, as an independent variant of the use of renewable energy sources in the current Cuban context for sustainable development.

Solar thermal power plants of the «tower» type are not considered among the facilities with the greatest prospects for replacing conventional energy sources, precisely because of their high cost.

But in the case of bagasse power plants, part of the turbines and electricity generators are built and free for much of the year. That is, it is only necessary to consider the steam generating part in these solar power plants, that is, the heliostat field. An economically advantageous variant to consider is the construction of a hybrid thermoelectric plant from bagasse and solar radiation as renewable sources of energy.

For this reason, we have proceeded, in this work, to optimize the shape and movement of each heliostat in the field, in addition to its most appropriate position on the ground in relation to the boiler, previously selected. This method differs by this from the methods currently used, which first select the type of heliostat and only perform partial system optimizations. If one takes into account that a field is generally composed of thousands of heliostats, with a cost of thousands of pesos each, the need to work with optimized parameters can be understood. At the end of the work the optimization data of both the field and the heliostats are given.