I was wondering if there are any plans to add a Brayton power cycle option to the CSP section of your SAM tool. If so, is there a beta version that I could test to see how it works?
We are planning to implement a CO2 closed-Brayton-cycle models in SAM, but not until sometime in 2014-15. As far as we know at the moment, that model will work for recompression and simple cycle configurations. We do not have plans for now to develop models for other types of Brayton cycles like open air or a different working fluid.
Unfortunately, there are not any good options to model a Brayton power cycle in the current version of SAM. If you have the resources to develop your own performance models to calculate the system's hourly electric output, you could use that data as input to SAM's generic model to use with one of SAM's financial models.
Another option would be to use SAM's generic solar model to get a first-cut approximation of your system's performance and financial feasibility. That would require determining a set of coefficients for the power cycle and solar field efficiency curves as input to the model.
