How accurate is the heliostat field for power tower being calculated ?

Hi,

I was wondering, if the calculation of the heliostat field for a power tower really takes into account all the losses described by Wagner (2008) p 23-42 (eg. cosine effect, shading, blocking,...). Or are these losses just the theoretical background of what one should consider when designing the field in detail with maybe a more specific program !?

Hello,

SAM's power tower model implements the method described in Wagner 2008, so yes, SAM does account for those losses. If you are interested, you can see the code for the model in the source code folder -- the overview topic in Help for each of the CSP models explains where to find the files.

Best regards,
Paul.