Solar Tower System-Heliostat numbers

Correct. That is understood. However I have one query regarding how the optimization wizard calculates this number.? Does it take the year round climate into account.? Since the power collected from heliostats will be different in March than in June and with solar multiple mentioned already, does the wizard take into account the seasonal changes of a site.? At days with low intensity of sun, does it take into account the solar field size needed for the power required.?

The tower optimization algorithm is described in the documents listed on the Performance Models Page under Power Tower and Power Tower Field Optimization.

Wagner 2008 ( PDF 32.3 MB ), p 45 describes the process for selecting a sample of 8 days distributed between the summer and winter solstices to generate a set of representative flux maps.

Best regards,
Paul.






Google "Power from the Sun" and open the free e-book by that title. It has formulas in chapter 10 (10.2 to 10.5) for spacing heliostats as a function of distance from tower. You can use the formulas in an excel spreadsheet to allocate the nunber of heliostats per SF section and manually input the results into the SAM solar field table. I am doing so now for my project. I still have to apply a fudge factor to the calculated solar field density and to the land area.

Thanks Paul and random.snapp for your inputs. I will try working it out by this help.
One more question not related to heliostats, how do I account for energy needed for freeze protection/heat tracing, etc.? Do I have to specify it in Parasitics because I dont see it there. Also, I am doing it for both Tower and Parabolic Trough, so if possible kindly advise for both. I read the Help files but I was not clear. And I am new to the use of SAM. So your advise will be very useful.