Dear Tonatiuh users,

We released few days ago the new version of Tonatiuh. This new release
incorporates very interesting features to facilitate:

a) The modeling of heliostat fields, and thereby, the modeling of solar
tower systems.
b) The testing of different atmospheric transmittance models
c) The ray casting process, allowing the users to select the objects that
should be taken into account during that process

You can find more information about the features of this new version of
Tonatiuh at the main page of the Tonatiuh website<http://code.google.com/p/tonatiuh/>
.

Thanks for using Tonatiuh and for supporting its development with your
comments, suggestions, and questions.

Dear Mr. Blanco,

I am studying a MSc in solar thermal energy and I need urgently to do a
work related with a CSP plant. I was told to use soltrace, but now I see
that this software is more interesting. What I need now is the heliostats
coordinates of whichever existing plant or project. I wonder if you can
help me with a website where I can fin those.
Thank you very much for your help.

Kind regards

Sofía Salazar

El martes, 10 de abril de 2012 15:00:17 UTC+2, Manuel J. Blanco escribió:

Dear Sofia,

In the literature there are several papers that provide description of
heliostat fields for solar tower plants. Two years ago, for instance, the
following paper was published in the Solar Energy international journal,
that provides information regarding how to generate heliostat fields, and
also includes references to previous articles in the subject:

"Heliostat Field Optimization: A New Computationally E cient Model and
Biomimetic Layout". Corey J. Noone (MIT), Manuel Torrilhon (RWTH) and
Alexander Mitsos (MIT,*) Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

If you do an Internet search  you may find PDF copies of such article. Also
you can get it from the Solar Energy journal. I found a copy of the
article, most likely the author's draft, at the following link:
http://www.mathcces.rwth-aachen.de/torrilhon/NooneTorrilhonMitsos_Sol...

Furthermore, you may also want to explore the simulation capabilities for
solar tower systems of NREL's Solar Advisor Model (SAM).

I hope the above information is of help.

Best regards,