Optimization of multiple receivers solar power tower systems

In this article a new procedure to optimize the design of a solar power tower system with multiple receivers is presented. The variables related to the receivers (height, aperture tilt angle, azimuth angle and aperture size) as well as the heliostat field layout are optimized seeking to minimize the levelized cost of thermal energy. This is a high dimensional optimization problem with black-box nonconvex objective function. The proposed strategy alternatively optimizes the receivers and the heliostat field. A separate aiming region is considered for each receiver. The aiming regions, the number of heliostats and their locations are obtained with the proposed procedure. Specifically, heliostat positions are obtained through a pattern-free greedy-based location method. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.