Strategy and criteria to optically design a solar concentration plant

The objective of this work is to individuate the best strategy to determine the layout of a thermodynamic plant based on the concentration of solar flux by means of a large number of mirrors. Many software tools exist, both dedicated software and more general optical software. This analysis shows the advantages derived from the use of a general non-sequential optical software, proposing criteria and procedures in order to establish dedicated optical merit figures, which are suggested and evaluated from the point of view of their effectiveness to achieve a favorable layout design. Particular attention is devoted to merit figures that estimate the optical efficiency, a key quantity for all the CSP plants that can be defined in different ways. The description includes examples of application, discussion of results and various proposed alternatives for the merit figure. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.