Photogrammetry for Concentrating Solar Collector Form Measurement, Validated Using a Coordinate Measuring Machine

Peter King, Christopher Sansom and Paul Comley
Additional contact information
Peter King: Centre for Renewable Energy Systems, Cranfield University, Bedford, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
Christopher Sansom: Centre for Renewable Energy Systems, Cranfield University, Bedford, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
Paul Comley: Centre for Renewable Energy Systems, Cranfield University, Bedford, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Concentrating solar power systems currently have a high capital cost when compared with other energy generating systems. The solar energy is captured in the form of thermal energy rather than direct electrical, which is attractive as thermal energy is more straightforward and currently more cost-effective to store in the amounts required for extended plant operation. It is also used directly as industrial process heat, including desalination and water purification. For the technology to compete against other generating systems, it is crucial to reduce the electrical energy cost to less than $0.10 per kilowatt-hour. One of the significant capital costs is the solar field, which contains the concentrators. Novel constructions and improvements to the durability and lifetime of the concentrators are required to reduce the cost of this field. This paper describes the development and validation of an inexpensive, highly portable photogrammetry technique, which has been used to measure the shape of large mirror facets for solar collectors. The accuracy of the technique has been validated to show a whole surface measurement capability of better than 100 m using a large coordinate measuring machine. Qualification of facets of the MATS plant was performed during its installation phase, giving results of the shape, slope and intercept errors over each facet.

Keywords: parabolic trough; photogrammetry; validation; optimisation; CSP; solar collector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/196/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/196/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2019:i:1:p:196-:d:301868

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().