Comparison of heliostat field layout design methodologies and impact on power plant efficiency

The aim of this paper is the presentation of a study of heliostat field layout performances for a CSP plant, based on the central receiver technology, using different algorithms for layout generation. The purpose is to perform a detailed comparison of the layout performances in terms of efficiency and energy yield to determine the algorithms benefits and drawbacks at various scenarios as first step on the optimization of the heliostat layouts designs. The layouts compared are generated using a genetic optimization process and using different objective functions for each studied case. Results show that new biomimetic algorithms are a good alternative to classical algorithm patterns based on the radial staggered method. However, these results are only valid for the analyzed cases. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.