Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
Evaluation of Medium Scale Linear Fresnel Reflector
CSP: A Case Study in North Queensland
Rakibuzzaman Shah, Ruifeng Yan, and Tapan Saha
School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
The University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia
E-mail: md.shah@uqconnect.edu.au; ruifeng@itee.uq.edu.au; saha@itee.uq.edu.au
Abstract—Future distribution networks in Australia are likely to
include large volume of medium scale concentrated solar power
(CSP) plants. Like other renewable resources such as
photovoltaic (PV) and wind, CSP has a variable output. To plan
the power system’s reserves with variable generator like CSP, it
is important to study the long term energy yield in detail.
Moreover, the long term energy yield is the main contributing
factor towards the feasibility of a CSP project in a particular
geographical region. This study assessed the long term yield of a
medium scale Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) CSP at
Rockhampton, North Queensland, using climatic data covering
thirteen years with an hourly resolution. A statistical model of
CSP ramp events for best and worst yield year has been
presented. Furthermore, the impact of this variable generation
on distribution system voltage profile has been evaluated by
time series analysis.
Index Terms—Energy yield, LFR system, ramp events, time
series analysis, voltage profile.
I. INTRODUCTION
Concentrating solar power (CSP) is gaining increasing
interest around the world [1]. CSP has been identified as one
of the most promising technologies for medium to large-scale
electricity generation in Australia [2]. Recent studies have
revealed that it would be technically feasible to integrate 15
GWe of CSP plants in the Australian Electricity Network with
a modest expansion of the grid [2]. CSP plants typically need
to be built at several MW scale for optimizing the balance of
costs. In terms of capacity and size, it is much larger than its
counterpart PV, which is comparatively modular. Moreover,
unlike PV, a CSP plant uses direct normal irradiance (DNI) to
convert solar energy into heat, which is then used in the
thermodynamic cycle to produce electricity through a
synchronous generator. Therefore, from electric utility point of
view, CSP is a synchronous generator with time varying
outputs.
CSP power follows an annual and diurnal insolation
patterns, instigated by the earth’s movement and distributed
cloud movements. Such a variable generator has several
significant impacts on a power system generation,
transmission, and distribution. Variable power production
from CSP changes the reserve requirements of a system.
Therefore, it is important to analyze the long term energy yield
of CSP for a proper planning of the required system reserve.
Moreover, long term energy yield evaluation is essential for a
secured and competitive finance of a CSP project.
Currently there are four CSP technologies
underdevelopment or being exploited: Parabolic Trough
Collector (PTC), Power Tower (PT), Linear Fresnel Reflector
(LFR), and Parabolic Dish [3]. Among the available
technologies, the PTC and PT are the most developed
technologies for large-scale applications. However, the recent
emergence of LFR technology will enable the application of a
CSP system as a distributed energy resource around the world
[3].
In literatures, much effort was put into analyzing the
opportunities and cost of CSP in many parts of the world [4]-
[12]. Research has been conducted to evaluate generation
adequacy with CSP by sequential Monte Carlo method [4].
Research works in [5], [6] proposed an optimized operational
planning of CSP systems with thermal storages for
maximizing the revenue. MW resource assessment of a hybrid
system (i.e. Wind and PTC) was presented in [7]. Studies in
[8]-[10] were devoted in analyzing the CSP potential in China,
India, and USA. There are other sets of research works
dedicated to techno-economical assessment of CSP systems
and their impacts on electricity market [11], [12]. However,
none of these studies have considered the LFR technology.
Moreover, the CSP models used for these studies were large
scale in nature.
A limited number of studies have considered annual
energy yield analysis of a LFR system [13]. Furthermore, no
research has yet investigated the long term MW resource with
hourly resolution data of a CSP system in Northern
Queensland, Australia. This paper aims to fill this gap, and
provide a comprehensive energy yield analysis of a LFR
system by using the historical data of a Northern Queensland
location, Rockhampton. Moreover, this paper also analyzed
the impact of a CSP plant on steady state voltage profiles of a
distribution system by time series analysis.
 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
Section II illustrates the general description of a LFR system
including specific features of the Novatec LFR system. The
LFR system modelling and methodology for yield analysis is
described in Section III. Results and discussions are presented
in Section IV. Finally, the conclusions are duly drawn in
Section V.
II. DESCRIPTION OF LFR SYSTEM
The Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) based CSP system is
currently being commercialized by a number of companies for
small to medium scale (1-30 MWe) CSP applications. A
sketch of LFR system is presented in Fig. 1. The LFR system
as shown in Fig. 1 creates a linear focus for the downward
facing linear receiver. It has long rows of flat or slightly
curved mirrors. The receiver has a fixed structure, which is
mounted over a tower and along the linear reflectors. A single
or dual axis tracking facility is available in reflector to follow
the sun path. At this moment, LFR technology is less popular
than the Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) and Power Tower
(PT). However, LFR offers certain advantages over PTC and
PT, including a low cost collector, simplified piping of the
receiver that facilitates relatively high temperature operation.
Nonetheless, LFR does not use rotating joints at the end of the
each collector line, therefore, compared to PTC the
maintenance cost of this technology is low [3].
Fig. 1. Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) technology [3].
The LFR technology commercialized by Novatec Solar has
been used for this particular study. The first Novatec LFR was
installed in the demonstration plant at Calasparra, Spain, with
a nominal capacity of 1.4 MWe. A second plant of this
technology is now being installed with a nominal capacity of
30 MWe in Spain [3]. Novatec Solar used low temperature
saturated steam for their earlier project, however like other
LFR manufacturing companies, developed a superheated
system known as Super NOVA with a steam temperature of
5000 C at 120 bar pressure [3], [13]. This superheated LFR
system has been used for this study.
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Modelling of LFR for Yield Analysis
A number of softwares can be used to perform yield
analysis of CSP system i.e., SAM, SOLERGY, SIMULCET,
and GREENIUS [3]. For this analysis, SAM is used for yield
2
assessment of a LFR system as it has already been widely
applied to simulate a number of CSP projects [14]. To perform
the yield analysis for a particular location with any CSP
technology, the default model in SAM need to be tailored
according to the location, requirements of the utility and
owner of the plant. Therefore, some modifications in the
model parameters need to be done. A 30 MWe LFR based
CSP, which is planned for the Collinsville region has been
considered for this analysis. The power block consists of a 30
MWe turbine with a live steam parameters of 120 bar and 5000
C. The gross design efficiency of the power block is 38.75%
[3]. Moreover, the live steam parameters and the superheating
temperature are assumed to be constant. The following fixed
design point parameters as given in Table I are used in
modelling LFR system in SAM.
TABLE I. FIXED DESIGN POINT PARAMETER [15]
Item Specification
Design point irradiance 950 W/m2
Azimuth angle -100
Solar multiplier 1.65
Fossil fuel backup None
Thermal storage None
Condenser type Evaporative
Estimated gross conversion factor 0.950478
Design turbine gross output 30 MWe
B. Data
In this paper, the yield analysis is based on the hourly
series of irradiance, temperature, and wind speed, to which a
CSP model is applied. The studied time period covers the
thirteen years, 1999-2012 (except year 2006 due to some
missing data) for Rockhampton in North Queensland. Long
term data analysis reveals Rockhampton as a viable location
for CSP deployment with a mean DNI of 2070.6 kWh/m2 per
year [2]. A long term mean DNI of 2000 kWh/m2 per year is
prerequisite for CSP deployment in any location [2], [3]. SAM
is compatible for a number of weather file formats such as
TMY (TMY2, TMY3), EPW, TDY, and so on. TMY data
format has been used for this case. TMY2 datasets of
Rockhampton for 1999-2012 obtained through the ‘Exemplary
Energy’ has been used here for yield analysis of a 30 MWe
LFR plant [16].
C. Yield Analysis
Total energy that can be supplied to grid from a LFR
system depends on the individual component models, which
represent each stage of the solar electricity conversion. Based
on this feature, the net power output of a LFR system at any
instant can be obtained by subtracting the losses of every
component model from incident solar energy as given in (1)
[14].
P = Psolar _ in − Pfield _ loss − Preceiver _ loss
(1)
− Ppowercycle _ loss − Pparasitics _ loss
where Psolar _ in = incident solar energy to the field,
Pfield _ loss = loss associated with solar field, Preceiver _ loss = loss
associated with LFR receiver, Ppowercycle _ loss = loss associated
 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
with electric conversion system, and Pparasitc _ loss = parasitic
loss.
Therefore, the energy yield over a period of time T can be
defined as
T
∫
E = Pdt
0
For a time period of 1 year T is 8760 hours.
D. Performance Index
Performance index is presented in this section. Defining a
performance index could facilitate the comparison of the
studied system with a similar standardized system. Moreover,
the performance index can be used to find out the expected
operating boundary of the studied system. The following
performance index known as an annual net solar yield is used
in this paper. Lower value of an annual net solar yield
indicates the lower energy yield of a CSP system. Equation (3)
defines the annual net solar yield (ASY) in terms of
percentage [17].
Specific energy production
ASY = ×100
8760
The specific energy production in (3) can be defined as
follows [17]
Energy from CSP to grid
SEP =
rated net power of the CSP plant
E. CSP Power Ramps
CSP ramps are defined as the significant change in a CSP
output subject to the pre-specified rules such as a minimum
power swing or duration. Quantifying the frequency and
severity of these CSP ramps could assist the operation and
planning of generation or demand response especially during
an islanded or isolation operation. A statistical model of CSP
ramp from historical data has been developed here. To
characterize the CSP ramps, CSP output obtained through
SAM has been used. The set of CSP ramp data has been
defined with a Δt of 30 mins resolution. Both up and down
ramp for the studied CSP have been evaluated. A Gaussian fit
has been applied to all the ramp data.
F. Time Series Analysis
Time series analysis has been used to analyze the voltage
variations of a distribution network in presence of a CSP
system. In time series analysis, a single point power flow
problem is expanded into multiple simulations with
individual values for each time step. With the variation of
renewable generation and load over the year, it is reasonable
to cover at least one year for a time series analysis, which
means at least 8760 power flows need to be solved.
Performing power flow computations for every possible
scenario are impractical for utility studies. Moreover, it has
been proved by [18] that a time series simulation using
clustering techniques to reduce the volume of data is equally
effective as using a long historical data for the simulation.
3
Having considered this, an intelligent way of handling a large
dataset associated with variable generation sources such as
CSP has been considered in this work. The method is based
on the feature extraction and clustering algorithm, which
reduces the input dataset by grouping the similar data points
into clusters by keeping required information of the
underlying data series.
(2)
This method of data reduction reduces the computational
effort and allows for a robust assessment of system
performance with CSP penetration. For this work, K-means
data clustering method, one of the popular techniques for
partitional clustering has been used [19]. The main
advantages of this clustering method are the simplicity and
efficiency for the globular data. The K-means clustering
groups a data set of X n ( n = 1,..., n ) in K clusters by means
of an iterative process. The algorithm starts with the
initialization process by choosing K random centroids from
the data points. Then each data point is assigned to the closest
cluster centroids. Details of this clustering method can be
found in [19] and the references therein. The overall
computational procedure of the method is given in Fig. 2.
(3)
(4)
Fig. 2. Overall computational procedure of the time series power flow.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. MW Resource Assessment
Monthly mean yield of the studied system at
Rockhampton is presented in Figs. 3 (a)-(b). For this analysis,
a total of 13 years datasets for the period of 1999-2012
(excluding 2006) have been used. Solar data for 2006 was
discarded from the analysis as SAM had a convergence
problem for this year due to some bad data issue. From the
results in Figs. 3 (a)-(b) it is evident that during June-July the
mean energy yield for the studied CSP system is low
compared to the summer months (Nov.-Feb.). It is also
observed that the monthly mean energy yield of the system is
high for November and December compared to the other two
months of the summer. From the results in Figs. 3 (a)-(b) it
can be observed that among the studied years, 2010 is the
 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
worst year with the lowest monthly mean energy yield for
almost all the months of the year except January.
Figs. 4 (a)-(b) show the histogram of CSP power outputs
in terms of percentage of CSP generation capacity for the
studied years. From the results shown in Figs. 4 (a) and (b) it
can be seen that the majority of time, power outputs of the
studied system are within 0% to 15% of the generation
capacity. For 1999-2005, 37% of the time the outputs from
CSP are within 0% to 15% of its generation capacity, and
18% time the outputs are within 90% to 100% of its
generation capacity. For 2007-2012, 42% of time the outputs
from CSP are within 0% to 15% of its generation capacity
and almost 14.2% time the power from the studied CSP are
within 90% to 100% of its generation capacity.
Fig. 3. Monthly mean energy yield: (a) 1999-2005, (b) 2007-2012.
Fig. 4. Histogram of CSP power outputs: (a) 1999-2005, (b) 2007-2012.
4
Inter-annual variability assessment is important for a
power system planning study. The annual energy yield of a
CSP at Rockhampton is shown in Fig. 5 for the two separate
time periods, 1999-2005 and 2007-2012. Fig. 5 presents the
inter-annual variability of CSP outputs in terms of a mean
energy value. In this case, the mean energy yield of the
studied system is 44.16 GWh per annum. The results in Fig. 5
depict that the most of the years under study experienced a
higher deviation from mean energy yield. From Fig. 5 it can
be seen that the system could experience annual energy
output variation of as high as 20 GWh per annum from the
mean.
Fig. 5. Yearly energy yield and deviation from a long term mean.
Fig. 6 shows annual net solar yield of the studied CSP system
for the time period of 1999-2005 and 2007-2012. From Fig. 6
it is evident that for none of the studied years, the annual net
solar yield of the CSP system is over 25%. Moreover, the
system could experience a very low annual net solar yield as
low as 9.53%.
Fig. 6. Annual net solar yield: (a) 1999-2005, (b) 2007-2012.
Ramp rate has been fitted into Gaussian probability
function as described in Section III. E. So, to analyze the
variability of CSP output, ramp data (i.e., ramp rate (MW)
per 30 minutes, ΔP / Δt , for four seasons) is fitted to the
normal distribution function. To characterize the CSP ramps
 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
5

at Rockhampton, the worst and the best year in terms of during those time windows of the day and no reactive power
energy yield of the studied CSP system has been used. From injection to the grid from CSP plant. Voltage control mode
the results depicted in Figs. 6 (a)-(b), we have identified 2001 operation of the CSP plant could minimize these voltage
as the best and 2010 as the worst year in terms of annual net variations during the midday and late afternoon.
solar yield of the CSP system at Rockhampton. Fig. 7 shows
the distribution of CSP ramps at Rockhampton. From Fig. 7 it
can be seen that the winter has higher variability of ramp rate
followed by the summer whereas, the spring has the lower
variability of ramp.

Fig. 8. Maximum and minimum values of bus voltage: (a) nominal load, (b)
6% load growth.
Fig. 7. Distribution of CSP ramp at Rockhampton.

B. Impact on Distribution System Voltage Profiles

The effect of CSP on nodal voltage variation is analysed in
this section in light of the method presented in Section III. F.
For this analysis, an example distribution system with the
similar feature of a distribution system in North Queensland
has been used. Load profile for a North Queensland
distribution system given in [20] has been used here. The
analysis has been conducted for two system loading
conditions, nominal load (29.38 MW and 13.48 MVAr) and
6% load growth condition. CSP has been considered to
operate at unity power factor for this analysis. Three typical
years of meteorological data have been used to form the
clusters of the CSP power profiles for a time series based
power flow. A 30 MWe CSP has been considered near to the
load centre of the studied distribution system.
The voltage profiles of the buses for nominal system load
and 6% load growth condition are shown in Figs. 8 (a)-(b).
From Figs. 8 (a)-(b) it can be seen that at nominal loading
condition, bus 18 and 23 experienced the largest voltage
variation, beyond the acceptable band of the bus voltage.
From the results shown in Fig. 8 (b) it is evident that again Fig. 9. Steady state voltage profiles for different buses: (a) sunny day, (b)
bus 18 and 23 of the system experienced the largest voltage cloudy day, (c) overcast day.
variation, for 6% load growth condition. In comparison to
Fig. 8 (a), it is also evident that all the system buses Global voltage variation index ( VI ) as defined in (5) has been
experienced almost twice the higher voltage variations for 6% used to assess the overall impact of CSP variatibility on
load growth condition. system steady state voltage regulation [21]. For a secure
operation the distribution system operator wants this index to
Figs. 9 (a)-(c) show the steady state voltage profiles of the
be very low.
system buses for sunny, cloudy and overcast day cluster
representatives at morning, midday, and late afternoon for the n
daily load profiles in summer. From the results depicted in
Figs. 9 (a)-(c) it is evident that due to the CSP insertion into
∑V
i =1
i
g
− Vi n

the system the steady state voltage profiles of the system VI = n

× 100 (5)
buses experienced significant variations during the midday
and late afternoon as compared to the morning. This
∑V
i =1
i
n

happened due to higher real and reactive power demands

 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference, AUPEC 2014, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 28 September – 1 October 2014
where n = total number of buses, Vi g = voltage magnitude of
i bus with CSP in the system and Vi n = voltage magnitude of
i bus without CSP.
Figs. 10 (a)-(b) show the PDFs of global voltage variation
index for normal and 6% load growth. The PDF of the global
voltage variation index is produced using Kernel distribution.
From Figs. 10 (a)-(b) it can be seen that the system is more
exposed to the higher voltage variations during 6% load
growth.
Fig. 10. PDF of steady state voltage variaton index: (a) nominal load, (b) 6%
load growth.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a comprehensive MW resource assessment
of a medium scale LFR based CSP system at Rockhampton is
presented. Thirteen years historical data of solar irradiance,
temperature, and wind speed have been used to evaluate the
yield of the studied CSP system. From the analysis, it can be
seen that for a significant time period the studied CSP could
generate power at 90 to 100 percent of its rated capacity.
However, it is also noticed that the annual net solar yield of
the studied system at Rockhampton is on the lower side. A
statistical model of ramp events for a CSP is also presented in
this paper. From the statistical model of ramp, it can be seen
that the winter season has the higher tail followed by the
summer.
This paper used a time series analysis based method to
evaluate the voltage variations of a power system with CSP.
This method can provide a global picture of voltage variations
of the system with CSP for medium to long term planning.
From the simulation results it can be seen that the studied CSP
system close to the load centre could lead to higher voltage
variations into the system for the considered loading profiles
of North Queensland.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This project is supported by the Australian Government
through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
6
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