Design of a mirror mounting & positioning system of a coupled tracking heliostat
Problem statement
The sun, with its limitless abundance of energy, has the potential to power our entire world and revolutionize the way we produce and consume energy. Being the largest renewable energy resource available in nature, harnessing solar energy allows us to fulfill our energy needs that exceed global demand by 10,000-fold, completely carbon-free[1]. However, conventional fossil fuels and coal power plants remain a majority choice of energy providers for their low-cost merits and practicality due to their well-established infrastructure. This inherent advantage impedes renewable energy sources from experiencing widespread adoption, despite being attributable to spewing out 40% of the world’s carbon emissions[2]. To contend with fossil fuels, renewable energy production costs must be more competitive. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) provides a promising form of renewable technology that converts the sun’s thermal energy into electricity and has become an option for some utility-scale energy providers in areas of warmer climates. Unfortunately, CSP requires expensive and complicated equipment that renders constructing its infrastructure very challenging, oftentimes negating any dispatchibility and energy storage benefits over other renewable energy methods, including its more popular solar energy counterpart: photovoltaics. To illustrate, heliostats, a primary component of CSP plants, require individual drivers and mounting frames that are significant cost contributors, accounting for up to 50% of a CSP plant’s cost. Ty Neises from NREL, in collaboration with UW-Madison, aims to propose an innovative solution to this problem by developing a low-cost heliostat design that a shared set of drivers can operate. Our proposed heliostat enables a small, stationary receiver capable of conventional integration with thermal energy storage (TES) by offloading the process into two separate stages: the tracking and concentrating stages. The tracking stage consists of rotating heliostats that share a common angle to reflect the sun’s heat radiation in a constant direction regardless of the sun’s position. Afterward, a secondary concentrating stage of stationary mirrors, each with a fixed unique angle, can concentrate the flux from the previous stage onto a central receiver. By allowing multiple small-area, flat heliostats in the second stage of reflection to share a standard set of drives and mounting frames, cost-cutting methods can be achieved, contributing to lower energy production for CSP. When observed to fruition, this project can simplify CSP technology into a more cheap, practical, and viable option in many energy applications, therefore contributing to a cleaner global energy production everyone strives to achieve. [1] “Solar Energy vs. Fossil Fuels: The Great Debate,” (Sunpower: Feb 2022), https://www.bluesel.com/blog/solar-energy-vs-fossil-fuels-the-great debate/#:~:text=Electricity%20from%20fossil%20fuels%20costs,hour%20and%20are%20trending%20down.%E2%80%9DLinks to an external site. [2] “Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Electricity – World Nuclear Association,” (World Nuclear Association: Oct 2022), https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-electricity.aspx#:~:text=Over%2040%25%20of%20energy%2Drelated,point%20in%20their%20life%2DcycleLinks to an external site.
Team members 
Seamus Flynn McDonald – leader
Joe Gamm – communicator
Andrew Patrick Roberts – accountant
Christopher Raymond – admin
Client
Ty Neises, NREL