Problems with the dispatch control

Hi,


I have several questions concerning the dispatch control for the physical trough model.

1/ for the payment allocation factor, on what parameter does it depend on? what are the parameters which influence the change for the different periods?

2/ Fossil fill fraction only takes into consideration the fuel used for direct energy generation? or it also takes into account the fuel to maintain the HTF above its freezing temperature, the fuel for the turbine starup...etc?

3/I have made some modification in the periods of my dispatch control assuming 1 instead of 0 in some periods for the storage dispatch w/ solar and w/o solar, and all i can get is an error simulation. Where could I´ve been making a mistake?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!!

Best regards.

1. The payment allocation factors are not really part of the storage dispatch control. They are time-of-delivery factors that SAM applies to the PPA price to model time-dependent pricing. We included them with the storage dispatch control parameters because time-dependent pricing periods tend to coincide with storage dispatch periods.

2. SAM uses the fossil fill fraction to calculate the quantity of natural gas required to fire a backup boiler that delivers supplemental heat to the HTF to maintain the solar field temperature at the design point.

3. A storage dispatch value of 1 is valid, so I'm not sure what is causing the error. Did you change the value of some other inputs that could be causing the error?

Best regards,
Paul.