Different Tracking Error Distributions and their Effects on the Long-Term Performances of Parabolic Dish Solar Power Systems

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The performances of a parabolic dish power module are strongly dependent upon the accuracy of the tracking system. Four different tracking error distributions were used to evaluate the intercept factor and the thermal and engine efficiencies. Three of them are bounded distributions and the last one is the widely used classical Gaussian distribution. The Gaussian distribution estimates lower performance than the other more realistic distributions. In the case of the concentrators with good quality optics and accurate tracking system, little difference was observed between the results obtained by using the three bounded distributions. The differences were important in the case of a less accurate tracking system.