Comparative Performance Assessment For Central Receiver CPV Systems

A Central receiver Concentrating PV (C2PV) system has the potential to be the optimum solar energy generation system for utility scale because it combines the high efficiency of CPV with the low cost of a heliostat collector. Due to the off axis nature of a heliostat central receiver concentrator a cosine efficiency loss is incurred and, unlike ‘normal’ tracking CPV lens and dish systems, the optical performance varies with time and site latitude. To investigate the optical performance of a C2PV system a ray trace model has been developed and the performance of a representative C2PV system is modelled throughout the year and at different site latitudes. The cosine loss and latitude dependence are put into perspective by calculating the annual average optical efficiency and testing its sensitivity to variations in site latitude. These values are then used to estimate a system performance by applying efficiencies for solar cell, balance of system and operational factors. This system efficiency is finally co...