Abstract
The presented review gives reliable information about the currently used measurement instrumentation in parabolic trough fields and recent monitoring approaches. The usually built-in measurement equipment in the solar field, clamp-on systems for flexible measurements of temperature and flow, solar irradiance measurements, standard meteorological equipment, laboratory devices for heat transfer fluid analyses and instruments related to the tracking of solar collector assemblies are presented in detail. The measurement systems are reported with their measurement uncertainty, approximate costs and usual installation location for the built-in instrumentation. Specific findings related to the installation and operation of the measurement devices are presented. The usually installed instrumentation delivers a lot of measurements all over the field at the expense of measurement accuracy, compared to special test facility equipment. Recently introduced measurement approaches can improve the standard instrumentation in terms of accuracy, frequency, spatial distribution or can even extend the amount of measurands. The information about available measurands is the basis for future operation and maintenance solutions based on data-driven approaches.
Highlights
With the ongoing discussion of climate change and the shift toward electric mobility, renewable energy sources are more in the focus than ever before
Within the GUM, the standard uncertainty can be evaluated with Type A, which is based on knowledge from repeated measurements
A receiver with an observed glass envelope temperature of 58 ◦ C can be either a new receiver with low heat loss (150 W/m at 350 ◦ C heat transfer fluid (HTF) temperature) observed at near zero wind, or a defective receiver with high heat loss (514 W/m) observed at an air speed of 6 m/s [23]. These results show that the receiver glass temperature can only be used as an indicator for heat losses, if the air speed near the receiver tube is considered
Summary
With the ongoing discussion of climate change and the shift toward electric mobility, renewable energy sources are more in the focus than ever before. Present solar power plants are equipped with a variety of different measurement sensors. Trends for improved solar field operation, such as process monitoring and process optimization, assign the sensors an additional task. The reason for this is that the operators are forced to deliver electricity at constantly decreasing market prices. Artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for monitoring and optimization are one of the biggest trends for yield maximization These big data approaches usually use the already implemented measurement instrumentation as a basis. This helps to keep the costs as low as possible and maximizes the benefits from improved operation strategies. What is the accuracy of the used instrumentation? (Section 2.2) Where are the instruments located in the field? (Section 3) How can new approaches change solar field monitoring?
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