Simulation of the solar reflective dish of the concentrated solar power system

Abstract

Dish Stirling of the Concentrated Solar power system consists of a Dish to capture and focus the sunlight, a Stirling engine to produce mechanical power using the focused heat and an Electric Generator to convert the mechanical energy to electrical energy. Matlab simulations were done to analyze the effect of factors like the movement of sun, size of the solar reflective Dish and the radius of the curvature of the dish on the focus point changes and induced aberrations and to optimize the focus quality. Sun rays after reflecting from the dish meet each other at different points in the air rather than at a single point causing scattering and aberrations which is minimized by using dish of small size and large radius of the curvature. Simulations were also done to analyze and optimize the focus spread on the engine placed at the focal plane. As the focus spread increases with the movement of the sun, very few rays hit the sun. Using simulations we get an idea of how long does it take for the sun to move through an angle for which the focus spread is within the tolerable limit. We know beforehand to move the dish after some specific longer time rather than moving it time and again using some sensors to track the movement of the sun.