Esolar, Inc.

Dan Reznik

William Tod Gross

Christian T Gregory

Kevin Hickerson

Michael Slack

Bill Gross

Porter Arbogast

Adam Azarchs

Matthew B Hartshorn

Quoc Pham

Abraham Kribus

Ambrus Csaszar

Gregg Luconi

Maximilian Ted Zavodny

Michael James Forte

A solar power plant includes central receiver modules arranged in a regular pattern. Each central receiver module includes a tower, a central receiver mounted on the tower, and a heliostat array bounded by a polygon. The heliostat array includes heliostats with mirrors for reflecting sunlight to the central receiver. The heliostats are grouped in linear rows and each of the rows is parallel to another row. The locations of the heliostats are staggered between adjacent rows. The power plant also includes a power block for aggregating power from the central receivers and power conduits for transferring power from the central receivers to the power block.

Heliostat array layouts for multi-tower central receiver solar power plants

Embodiments provide a solar-thermal receiver comprising: (a) a light-absorbing panel comprising: (i) a light-absorbing outer surface; and (ii) an inner volume configured to admit the flow of heat transfer fluid; (b) an inlet configured to receive heat transfer fluid; and (c) an outlet configured to output the heat transfer fluid from the volume under hydrostatic pressure. Embodiments may include vanes and/or other flow-directing and/or flow-impending structural elements.

Solar-thermal panel and receiver

Embodiments provide a solar thermal receiver comprising: (a) a first containing member transparent to sunlight; (b) a second containing member comprising an inner surface reflective of sunlight; (c) an inlet proximate to the first containing member that is configured to receive injected heat transfer fluid; and (d) an outlet distal from the first containing member, where the first containing member and the second containing member together form a vessel configured to conduct injected heat transfer fluid from the inlet to the outlet under hydrostatic pressure.

Direct-absorption receiver

A suntracking system for a central receiver solar power plant includes a heliostat field for reflecting sunlight to a receiver, cameras directed toward at least a subset of the heliostats, and a controller. The cameras are configured to produce images of sunlight reflected from multiple heliostats. The heliostats include a mirrored surface having a settable orientation and have a geometry modeled by a set of parameters. A method of estimating heliostat parameters for open-loop suntracking includes acquiring pointing samples by setting the direction of reflection of the heliostats and detecting concurrent sunlight reflections into the cameras. The method uses the acquired pointing samples and surveyed locations of the cameras to estimate the heliostat parameters. The method accurately maintains the sun's reflection directed toward the receiver open-loop utilizing the estimated tracking parameters.

Calibration and tracking control of heliostats in a central tower receiver solar power plant

A system () for directing incident sun light to a receiver () based on an integral imager () is disclosed. The system includes an imager () mounted to a reflector (); a tracking controller () coupled to the imager; and one or more actuators () connected to the reflector and tracking controller. The tracking controller () is configured to receive and process image data from the imager (); determine angular positions of a radiation source and target relative to the mirror normal vector (N) based on the image data; and orient the reflector with the axis bisecting the angular positions of the sun and receiver (). When the optical axis of the imager is precisely aligned with the vector normal to the reflector, the source and target will be detected as antipodal spots () with respect to the center of the imager's field of view, which may be used to effectively track the sun or like object.

Heliostat with integrated image-based tracking controller

Systems and methods of calibrating heliostat parameters for subsequent open-loop sun-tracking, the calibration based on driving artificial light source reflections from one or more heliostats into one or more image sensors.

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New York, NY, United States of America

Dan Reznik