SolarPILOT
Solar Power tower Integrated Layout and Optimization Tool
An NREL tool for designing, characterizing, and optimizing concentrating solar power tower plants and heliostat fields.
About the Project
Why use this?
SolarPILOT is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s open-source design and optimization tool for concentrating solar power (CSP) tower plants. It generates and characterizes heliostat-field layouts using local solar and atmospheric conditions, models receiver optics, and optimizes field geometry and plant performance.
It is the right choice for engineers working on central-receiver CSP systems, heliostat layout, optical flux modeling, and solar-thermal plant design. SolarPILOT combines an analytical Hermite-series flux model with the SolTrace Monte Carlo ray-tracing engine, giving users both efficient system-level analysis and higher-fidelity optical validation. [124][126][135]
Key Features
- Heliostat-field layout generation and optimization
- Power-tower receiver and optical characterization
- Analytical flux modeling plus SolTrace ray tracing
- GUI and API for interactive and automated workflows
- Integration with NREL CSP tower models and System Advisor Model workflows
- Reference / Repo
- https://github.com/NREL/SolarPILOT
- Tool / Hosted
- https://www.nlr.gov/csp/solarpilot-download
- Replaces / Alternative to
- DELSOL3, proprietary CSP layout and optimization tools
- Free layer
- open-source