Design of Heliostats Field for the Scale of 1MW Solar Power Tower Plant

The development in basic technology and market strategy of solar thermal power techniques is booming rapidly due to the limited fossil resources and severe environmental problems all over the world. In this paper, the design method of heliostats field for the scale of 1MW solar power tower plant with latitude of 40.4°N at the design point of the noon of spring equinox is introduced, which uses the multiplication of three efficiencies of cosine, atmospheric transmittance and intercept as the preliminary boundary limit to locate heliostats, while the spacing between heliostats is set not only for less shading and blocking, but also for the availability of installation and maintenance of heliostats. Furthermore, its optical performance tested by the software HFLD, is quite good, which has annual average efficiency of 71.36% and design point efficiency of 80%.