Solar Power Tower Drives: A Comprehensive Survey

Recently, renewable energy is considered a vital source for electricity generation that aims to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions acquired from fossil fuels. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a growing technology that collects solar energy from the sunbeams. One of the efficient CSP topologies is the solar power tower (SPT), which aims to collect the direct sunbeams on a central collector using thousands of reflecting mirrors, called heliostats. Many literature reviews have presented the development of control techniques to improve tracking accuracy and SPT performance. However, on the component level, little work has been issued. This article introduces a comprehensive review of the different SPT drives. More than 100 papers have been classified and discussed to allocate the development and the research-gaps in SPT drives. The drive mechanisms, considering both the power source and mechanical transmission systems, have been classified and discussed. Additionally, a comprehensive review of the different electrical motors, along with their power electronic converters, used for heliostat units are presented, discussed, and compared. The advantages and the drawbacks of the different electrical drive systems are presented and discussed. Besides, the azimuth-elevation tracking technique is selected, discussed, and investigated with a dual-axis two linear actuators mechanism. Additionally, a case study for a small-sized heliostat prototype is presented, discussed, and analyzed using the azimuth-elevation dual-axis tracking to investigate the SPT’s performance in Dhahran, KSA, as a promising location in the Gulf region. According to this review, the research gaps and future work have been highlighted to help interested researchers in this area finding potential challenges.