CSP with TES - Shifting generation from on-sun to evening peak via "turbine fraction"

Dear Paul,

in fact I have two questions related to the same problem with a parabolic trough CSP plant and different TODs:

1) I'm trying to figure out a system that gets a peak revenue in the evening hours. Hence it's much better to ensure that the TES discharge mode prevails compared to the on-sun operation. Moreover I have established a logic with the meteo-file leading to a theoretical optimal hourly distribution of "turbine fraction" over the typical year (hour by hour). Now I need to know how to tell SAM all turbine fractions hour by hour.
a) The trials with "Excel exchange" did't work because it seems that SAM only accesses Excel once by run. b) To write a script would require too much effort ignoring if it is even possible to achieve the intended result.
c) I also saw that REopt might be a possibility.
d) Last but not least I asked myself if it would be possible to implement the "turbine fraction" in the meteo-file and declare SAM that column as being the "turbine fraction" for each hour.

I would be very glad if you could answer me whether one of the mentioned approaches above might be feasible to get the wished result.

2) The meteo-file and all calculations in SAM are made for full hour steps. Since the peak revenue period starts at 4:30 pm and ends at 9:30 pm, I tend to adapt the meteo-file. Can you tell me how it can be done suiting with the SAM calculation method? Using 10 min steps seems not to be the solution. I heard that SAM doesn't deal very well with time steps smaller than 1 hour.

Thank you very much in advance for the help on these both questions.

Yours sincerely

Dietmar

Dear Dietmar,
For Question 1, I am not sure I understand what you mean by "tell SAM all turbine fractions by hour." Do you mean that you want to provide SAM with the turbine generation data as an input? You can do that using the Generic System model: If you have a column of hourly (or subhourly) generation data, you can provide that as input. That makes it possible to use your own power generation data with one of SAM's financial models. (Note that this is possible with the Generic system model, not the CSP generic model). Otherwise, in SAM's CSP models, it is not possible to modify the turbine output fraction input variable except using the input variables on the Thermal Storage page. There, it is only possible to provide up to nine turbine output fractions: It is not possible to provide hourly fractions.
SAM's solar performance models support hourly and subhourly simulations up to one minute time resolution. Results for the CSP models should be reasonable up to 10-minute or 15-minute data. You can use the SAM CSV weather file format for subhourly data. For a description of the format, see SAM's help system. You can also find examples of the file format in the solar_resource folder of your SAM installation.
Best regards,

Paul.