Summary and Activities

Summary and Activities jls164 Wed, 02/26/2014 - 12:23

Strategic planning of a CSP facility involves a number of steps - site evaluation, socio-economic assessment, environmental assessment, and system modeling and optimization. All these steps must be taken before investment is made, and work has begun. Feasibility analysis requires several iterations and special expertise to justify the decision. This lesson introduced you to a few useful tools and methods to start with.

After you have covered the assigned readings for this lesson, please complete the following assignments:

Lesson 8 Assignments
Type	Description/Instructions	Deadline
Yellowdig Discussion	Join the Yellowdig community for the conversation about this lesson material. Check Module 8 in Canvas for suggested topics.	The point-earning period for this week runs from Saturday to next Friday.
Activity	SAM exercise In System Advisor Model (SAM) software, compare two different locations for a CSP plant - for example, Delaware and California locations. For each location, obtain data for both central tower and parabolic trough scenarios. Keep the technical parameters of the systems the same between the locations. Use the following metrics to compare plant performance: 1. Annual energy output, 2. Water use per kWh, 3. Land use per kW, 4. Annual revenue from selling electricity to the grid (based on local prices). Compare monthly output plots for a typical year for both types of plants at both locations and discuss the reasons for performance differences. Note: I hope you are familiar with the SAM software, since it was used in your EME 810 course. If you are missing that prerequisite, go to the Introduction to SAM page to learn how to install and run SAM.	Wednesday night

References for Lesson 8

Lovegrove, K., Stein W., Concentrating Solar Power Technology, Woodhead Publishing, 2012.

NREL, 2013 / http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf

Eilbert, A., The Trade-Off Between Water and Energy: CSP Cooling Systems Dry Out in California, Revolt - Worldwatch Institute, 2010.

Caldes, N., Varela, M., Santamaria, M., and Saez, R., Economic impact of solar thermal electricity deployment in Spain, Energy Policy 37, 1628-1636 (2009).

Lechon, Y., de la Rua, C., and Saez, R., Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Electricity Production by Solar thermal Power Plants in Spain, J. Solar Energy Eng., 130, (2008).

Introduction to SAM

Introduction to SAM msm26 Thu, 05/29/2025 - 16:13

Download System Adviser Model (SAM) Simulation Software

NREL's System Advisor Model (SAM) will be a useful simulation tool for this class. You will be required to use it for some of lesson assignments and your project. So I would like you to take the time to download and try launching SAM on your computer this week.

The NREL website linked above also has a webinar video, which walks you through the key functions of SAM. Please feel free to watch it at your leisure.

Directions

Create a User Account and choose Photovoltaic as the Technology Focus at the bottom of the page.
Follow the download and installation instructions.
NOTE: SAM is an Open Source project! The version of System Advisor Model as of the update of this page is SAM 2023.12.17 (and there will likely be newer versions each semester). It requires about 1 GB of disk space, and either Windows 10/8/7 or OS X 10.9 Intel or later. SAM is a 32-bit program that will run on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. If you do not have one of these operating systems, you can browse their list of Legacy Versions as an alternative.
Install and launch SAM on your computer. The very first time, you will need to enter your email and click the "Register" button. SAM will send you a code to use in the next entry for "Key". Paste it in and get rolling!
Try to "Start a New Project" with Photovoltaic Detailed Model for a Distributed scenario. The defaults are pretty reasonable in SAM. If you've never tried something like SAM, don't worry. This is really just an exploration step, and you can't really break anything by opening a new project and running it. So, just explore a little and have some fun.
If you successfully create a new project, you can browse through the system parameters and options on the left side menu. Check the defalt numbers. You will see that you can change the values in the white boxes, and numbers in the blue boxes will calculate automatically.
Hit the big blue box in the lower left labeled SIMULATE >. The program will run a year's solar data and will output a heap of results. The output in the table is the summary of stats for the project, usually estimating 25 years of a solar project.

Deadline

There is no deliverable for this activity, but I strongly encourage you to take initial steps for installation and creating a project in SAM this week. Lesson 2 will give you some work to complete in SAM, so it will be useful to have it up and running.

Yellowdig Conversation

Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, and tips on the SAM software in the Yellowdig space. Use the topic "Starting with SAM" for your posts. This is not a required activity, but it can still boost your participation score for this week.