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Solar thermal energy
Startak will test Sun position tracking system on CSP plant in France
Sun tracking system is compulsory in CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) technology in order to direct the Sun rays to the focal point. Tracking inaccuracy generates optical losses which lower the global efficiency of the system.
Depending on the CSP technology (tower, dish, parabolic trough, linear Fresnel) the tracking system will be different and more or less complex. One axis parabolic trough Sun tracking is not trivial due to the fact that this type of collector suffers constantly of an incident angle (apart from solar noon or adequate latitudes). In this case, the difficulty for an optical tracking sensor is to be able to make the difference between the incident angle and the tracking error angle.
Currently, most of the CSP plants installed worldwide uses parabolic trough concentrators. On a parabolic trough, compared to thermal losses, optical losses represents the main part of the loss on a solar field. The industry's current responses to that problem is diverse.
The objective of the test is to evaluate the tracking performance of Startak tracking control system, and to measure the resolution of the Sun tracking sensor for different incident angles on a real CSP collector.
The tests will take place in the research chenter PROMES-CNRS, in Odeillo, near the border between France and Spain, in late July and late September 2017.
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