Automatic Angle Calculation for Heliostat Tracking System

Abstract

A solar tower power plants, also known as ‘central tower’ power plant or ‘heliostat’ power plant is based on hundred of heliostat implemented to concentrate the sun ray onto a collecting tower. In this paper, a modeling approach is proposed for calculating the angle of a heliostat mirror based on its location, the tower location, the time and the date in which the sun position is calculated. The modeled equation are encapsulated in a GUI Matlab interface in which orientation of the heliostat are calculated for different parameters.