Spatial irradiance estimation in a thermosolar power plant by a mobile robot sensor network

Abstract

Abstract An algorithm for mapping Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) in thermosolar power plants using a Mobile Robotic Sensor Network (RSN) is presented. The algorithm selects measurement spots and allocates the RSN accordingly to carry out the dynamic estimation of DNI. A generic thermosolar power plant with a fleet of vehicles is used as a simulated case study to assess the performance of the algorithm. The results show that the proposed method allows us to obtain a spatial estimation of the DNI that could improve the performance of the plant, and that outperforms estimations based on a single pyrheliometer.