Solar Energy, Vol. 18, pp. 26%271. Pergamon Press 1976.

printed in Great Britain

TECHNICAL NOTE
Tower reflector for solar power plantt
ARI RABL
Solar Energy Group, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, U.S.A.

(Received 15 August 1975; in revisedform 14January 1976)

Several different power plant concepts have been proposed for the
conversion of solar energy to electricity. One of the most
promising schemes, the central receive~ or power tower/l/,
employs a large field of heliostats which collects light and
transmits it to a central absorber located on top of a tower. High
collection temperature and efficiency are the outstanding advantages of this approach. However, since the tower height lies in the
range from 100 to 500 m, there are problems associated with the
heat transfer from the absorber at the top of the power plant at the
base of the tower. It would be desirable to transport the energy in
the form of solar radiation all the way to the power plant. In this
note we propose a method, called "tower reflector", by which this
can be accomplished without excessive optical losses. Preliminary
estimates appear favorable, and we recommend that a detailed
systems analysis be performed comparing the tower reflector with
the power tower.
In principle, a hollow cylindrical pipe could transmit the
concentrated solar radiation from the top of the tower to the
bottom, but this would entail intolerable optical losses. If radiation
is concentrated onto a small area at the top of the tower, it will
necessarily have a large angular spread, and hence it will undergo
many reflections when transmitted through a cylindrical passage
to the base of the tower. (Totally diffuse radiation makes on the
average (n) = l/r reflections [2] when passing through a cylindrical
reflector of length l and radius r). The number of reflections can
be kept reasonably small only if the angular divergence 0 of the
radiation coming from the top of the tower is confined to values
below about 5. But in that case it is easy to show that the ratio of
tower radius to heliostat field radius must be at least sin 0 = 0.1
even if perfect optics are used. Such a "fat" tower seems
impractical. Reflection losses could, of course, be avoided by
means of a solid light pipe, relying on total internal reflection;
unfortunately, such a method would require too much material.
A better and simpler solution is based on the tower reflector
shown in Fig. 1. Here the incoming sunlight is reflected from a
field of heliostats R, towards a common focal point F~ in the sky.
Before reaching F,, the light is intercepted by a second reflector
R2 which directs all rays to the focal point F2 on the ground. As
practical values for the two rim angles, we suggest d',-~45 and
if2 = 5. Due to mirror errors and finite size of the sun, the light
will be concentrated onto a focal zone around F2, covering
approximately 1/100 to 1/50 of the total aperture; this implies a
rather low value, 50-100 for the concentration C~2 achieved by the
first two stages R, and R2. However, the angular spread of the
radiation reaching the focal zone is small, approximately ~2 = 5,
and thus a compound parabolic concentrator (= CPC)[3] cone can
boost the concentration by an additional factor of (l/sin t/~z)2 = 100
to values between 5000 and I0,000 (further reduced in practice to
2500-5000 because of shading and blocking).
In order to simplify the optical analysis, we take the sunlight to
he incident along the vertical axis and we assume the second stage
to be a flat horizontal Fresnel mirror.~ Consider a particular
incident ray which hits R~ at P, a distance r~ away from the axis.

t
I
I

/
= R r s t stage ~ - - (Fresnel mirrors)

\\

. . . .

/~lmox

Optical axis
Fig. 1. Optics of tower reflector. First stage = R,, consisting of
Fresnel mirrors (heliostats). Second stage = R2, consisting of
Fresnel reflectors which direct light towards common focus F2.
Third stage, consisting of an array of compound parabolic
concentrator (= CPC) cones around F2, is not shown in this
figure.
After reflection off R ~, the ray strikes R2 at P2 a distance r2 away
from the axis before being reflected to F~. The slope (measured
from horizontal) of the reflector Rz at P_, is given by
1
a(r2) = ~ (0, + 02).

(1)

where 0~ and 05 are the angles indicated in Fig. 1 (note that they
have opposite signs). If the focal length of RI is f and if R2 is at a
height h above the ground, then 0, and 05 satisfy the following
relations
tan 0,

rl-r2
h

rj
[

(2)

and
tan 0 2 = h = ( 1 - h ' l ~

fJh"

(3)

In order to find the concentration, one has to take mirror errors

and finite size of the sun into account and calculate the resulting
radius of the focal zone. For this purpose, we consider a ray
coming from P, towards R2 but deviating from the correct
direction 01 by a small amount d0~. When hitting the ground, this
ray will miss the focal point F2 by a distance

tWork supported by U.S. Energy Research & Development

Administration.
In practice, the optical axis will be tilted in the direction towards
the sun at noon, but the conclusions will remain essentially
unchanged.

dr = dr2 + ~

d02.

(4)

This equation shows two contributions: the first is the displace-

269

270

Technical Note

ment dr2 by which the ray misses P2 on the second stage, and the
second term is due to the angular deviation from 0~,
dO2 = 2da - dO,,

(5)

of the ray after it is reflected from R2. The quantity d02 arises
from the deviation d0, of the incoming ray and from 2da due to
the wrong curvature at the point of impact. Contour errors d/3 of
the second stage can be included by adding a further term 2d/3 to
the right hand side of eqn (5).
If the angular half width A0~ of the incoming radiation is
sufficiently small, then eqns (4) and (5) for the infinitesimal
quantities can be used to determine the concentration. Concentration, of course, is defined as ratio of aperture to absorber area, and
hence the concentration of the first two stages is (apart from
blocking and shading)

where rE.,.~ is the radius of the first stage and Arm~ = radius of
focal zone is the largest value of the left hand side of eqn (4),
corresponding to 0~ = qS, and 02 = d~z. Including a factor ~b =
effective ground cover to account for shading and blocking, one
finds that
[co~2
2 sin ~2
]-2
C,~ = ~0
-~ cos26~ (tan ~, + tan q~)
s i n ~ C ......

(6)

with
C

_~
1
'~"'- sin2 he, - (hO,) ~"

" (7)

A CPC cone as third stage can boost this value by an additional

factor
C3 ='o(l/sin~h2) 2, with "0 ~0.9,

(8)

resulting in a total concentration

1

C,23=~r0 ~

2sin6=
]-2
cos=th,(tan4~,+tan4~2) ] C ......

(9)

The factor ~ =0.9 is to account for the fact that a three

dimensional CPC (cone) falls short of the ideal limit[4] by about
10 per cent. For reasonable values of ~b, and ~2 the expression in
the paranthesis of eqn (9) is not much smaller than one, and since
C~,, = 40,000 for A0, = t$~ = 5 mrad (= half angle of sun), very
high concentrations can be achieved by this arrangement, at least
in principle.
In practice the angular deviation A0, will be somewhat larger
than & because of mirror errors, and values of h0~ = 7-10 mrad
can be expected. Even though the resulting displacements Ar2 and
h r (see eqn 4) are not small enough to be considered infinitesimal,
the above conclusions remain substantially unchanged. For an
illustration, let us consider a specific case with both the tower
height and the heliostat field radius R taken to be 100 m. For rays
with 0~ = ~ =45 , we find a displacement

A r 2 = ~ Ah O , = 2 m
cos t~,

for hO,=lOmrad.

Ar2 a ....
r2max

witham..=~(O,-~h2)=20 .

Armx = co~02 A02lmax= 14m.

(12)

With the assumed radius r, ~.. of the heliostat field of 100 m this
implies a concentration of C,2 = tP(r,m,dhr~ax)2= 500 for the
first two stages, if A0, = 10 mrad. With better mirrors A0~ might
become as small as 7 mrad, and C,2 would reach 100tp.
A CPC cone as third stage can boost this concentration by a
further factor of (1/sin ~2)2= 100 to a total of C,23=2500 for
A0, = 100 mrad and C,23 = 5,000 for A0I = 7 mrad, assuming an
effective ground cover factor ~ = 0.5.
This derivation shows that the concentration is very sensitive to
the surface and tracking accuracy of the heliostats of R,, but
rather insensitive to errors in slope or alignment of the second
stage R2 (errors A/3 in R2 could be as large as 1 or 2 without any
serious effect). The accuracy requirement for the CPC third stage
is not critical either, provided its angular contour errors are small
compared to ~,2 = 5.
As for the design of the third stage, a single cone would be
ridiculously big. But essentially the same optical performance is
obtained by an array of many small CPC cones, closely spaced
without gaps, each cone having an aperture radius of about
5-20 cm and a height of about 15-60 cm.
Optical transmission losses in a system of this kind can be fairly
large since all rays have to undergo two reflections before
reaching the CPC and approximately one additional reflection, on
the average, when passing through the CPC. Several methods for
minimizing these losses are mentioned.
The energy absorbed in the CPC need not be wasted; it can well
serve to preheat the working fluid. One might, for example, pump
a gas downward through the CPC cones. The gas stream will not
only extract the heat from the CPC and from the absorber, but it
can suppress convective losses if a transparent cover is placed on
top of the cones. The cover should be made of nonglare (etched)
glass [5] (transmissivity ->96 per cent). Such a cover also offers the
possibility of using an inert gas such as He to preserve the high
reflectivity of a first surface silver coating which would be
desirable for the CPC cones.
High reflectivity for the second stage is necessary not only for
the sake of good optical efficiency but also to avoid overheating.
With the proportions suggested above, the second stage is
exposed to I00 suns. Even if only 10 per cent of this is absorbed,
careful design will be needed to avoid overheating. (Reflectivities
around 90 per cent are feasible with second surface Ag mirrors).
Reflectivity close to 100 per cent can be achieved with prisms
using total internal reflection. Figure 2 shows the orientation of
small symmetric rectangular prism to be used at point P~ in Fig. 1.
The broad side of the prism faces downward in such a way that the

(10)

from the correct impact point P2 on R2. The radius r2~,x of the
second stage ought not to be much larger than 10 m, implying that
IArz/rzl = (1/5) which is not really infinitesimal. Hence it seems
more appropriate to approximate the finite change in reflector
slope Aa by

Aa =

ray AOz = 2Aa - A0~, the term 2Aa = 80 dominates. Similarly, the
contribution of A02 in eqn (4) is much larger than that of ~r~, and
thus one can take the radius Ar of the focal zone surrounding F~
to be

(11)

Since the largest variation of a occurs near the optical axis, this
estimate is an upper limit on Aa. In the deviation of the reflected

Roy from ~

\
Rays to F2

Fig. 2. Orientation of rectangular reflecting prism on second stage.

P,, P2 and F2 refer to points in Fig. 1. Radiation which emerges
after more than two internal reflections is not indicated; it will
always be parallel to the rays shown to be going to F~.

Technical Note
radiation which is reflected from the front reaches the focal point
F:. The 90 edge faces upward and runs along the radial direction
away from the optical axis of the system. The rays which undergo
total internal reflection inside the prism will emerge with a small
lateral displacement; the aberrations due to this displacement are
negligible since each prism will measure only a few mm in width.
Obviously straight (i.e. nontapered) prisms cannot be placed side
by side in a radial array without gaps. A practical solution would
use a "patchwork" of fairly small glass plates (roughly 30 x 30 cm,
easily mass produced) each of which is covered on the upper side
by parallel rectangular prisms. This implies that some of the
prisms will not have the correct orientation, but this has no effect
on the optical performance.t Of course, the glass should be highly
transparent to minimize absorption losses; so-called water-white
glass would be acceptable.
The tower reflector scheme can reach very high temperatures
and collection efficiency. For a conservative estimate, consider
the following system:
Concentration C = 2500, corresponding to fairly large mirror
and tracking errors A0,= 10mrad (one sided deviation from
perfect), and ground cover factor ~ = 0.5.
Reflectivity of first stage p, = 0.85.
Reflectivity of second stage p2 = 0.98 (glass prisms).
Transmissivity of non-glare glass cover on CPC = 0.96.
Reflectivity of third stage (CPC, approximately one reflection
on average) p3 = 0.95 (Ag in He atmosphere).
Absorptivity of cavity receiver E = 0.95.
These numbers imply an optical efficiency

"~(0) = p~p2zp~ = 72%.

tNote that rectangular prisms are effective reflectors for a 18&
field of view in the direction along the prism edge, while in the
transverse direction, they are limited by the index of refraction n.
For n = 1.5, the transverse field of view is ---5, large enough to
accomodate all rays impinging upon the second stage.

271

Assuming insolation of S = 0.1 W cm 2 attenuated by a factor of

0.6 to allow for cosine factor and for loss of diffuse radiation, the
average energy reaching the absorber is
Q~n= 0.6C S r/(0) = 108 W cm2.

(13)

At an operating temperature of T = 1300K (approximately

1000C), the radiative heat loss per unit absorber area is
Qraa = t r ( T ' - T 4...... ) 2 16 W/cm2,

(14)

indeed a small fraction of the incoming flux.

Acknowledgements--I should like to thank Prof. R. Winston for

helpful discussions.
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Aparese and B. A. Garf, Solar Energy I, 2 (1957); A. F.
Hilderbrandt, et al., EOS Trans. o.[ American Geophysics
Union 53 (7), 684--692 (1972); T. D. Brumleve et al., A high
temperature solar energy system. Sandia Livermore Laboratory, LSS-73-0059; Honeywell, Inc. and Black & Veatch,
Dynamic conversion of solar generated heat to electricity.
NASA report, NASA CR-134726 (1974).
2. A. Rabl, Radiation transfer through specular passages. Argonne National Laboratory Report, SOL 75-03 (1975), Int. J.
Heat Mass Transfer, to be published.
3. H. Hinterberger and R. Winston, Rev. Sci. lnstr. 37, 1094 (1966);
Rev. Sci. Instr. 39, 1217 (1968).
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geometrical optics. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 60, 245 (1970).
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