Thermal ??Dispatch Control CSP Plant

Hello,

I am modeling a csp plant with storage and I have got a strange result.
I'd like to have your help to clarify it.
I have modifyed in "Thermal ??Dispatch Control" de values for w / solar and wo / solar from 0 to 0.1 and the anual gross production has varied a lot.
I have checked hourly results and I have found that the solar field thermal output is the same for both cases, but the way it divides between "Thermal energy to the power cycle (MWh), hourly" and "Thermal energy to storage (MWh), hourly" changes. This is the reason why the results are different.

¿Why the management of the storage varies with a so small difference in that value ?

Thank you very much.

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