Round heliostats for CSP Power Tower

First of all: Thank you very much for the latest SAM release! I especially appreciate the possibility to generate x-y-coordinates for heliostat positions.
Unfortunately, the option to model round (or roundish) heliostats is now missing. Do you plan to add it in a coming release? That would be great!
Or should I use the 'ratio of reflective area to profile' variable as a work-around? I am not happy with that option, because I am afraid that concerning shading and blocking there is a significant difference between a round heliostat and a rectangular heliostat with a low 'ratio of reflective area to profile'. What do you think?

Thank you very much in advance,

Best regards

Gary

Dear Gary,

We do not have immediate plans to add round heliostats to SAM's power tower models. If we hear more requests to add this feature, we will consider doing so for a future version of SAM. If anyone else would like to model round heliostats, please let us know by responding to this thread.

There is not a good way to try to model round heliostats in SAM 2011.11.24 for the reasons you describe. As you mention, SAM 2014.1.14 and earlier have an option to model round heliostats, so you could continue using the older version for now.

Best regards,
Paul.

Paul,

Thank you for the update!

Best regards

Gerhard