Automated Heliostat Installation - Pile Driving and Efficient Material Flow

A concept for the automated installation of heliostats of solar tower power plants was developed with the main aim of reducing the installation costs. After discussing different types of foundations for the installation, the pile foundation was selected due to its low unit costs per heliostat. The feasibility was examined by calculating the wind loads and the structural stability. Vibratory pile driving was chosen as the method for driving the pylons into the ground as it enables the pile driving of very thin-walled pylons with minimal stress on the component. As a consequence of the piling, the installation of a heliostat requires two process steps - piling the pylons and assembling the concentrator with tracking device. The assembling is carried out using thin sheet metal screws, which were assessed as the optimum joining method considering the requirements. To ensure efficient transport of the components and efficient installation of several thousand heliostats on the solar field, various installation/material flow concepts were developed and weighed up against each other particularly in terms of the resulting installation cost. As a result, vehicle concepts for the automatic execution of the two process steps and for the material transport were derived and a design proposal are presented: A heavy tracked vehicle for piling the pylons and two smaller vehicles for transporting and assembling the concentrators with tracking devices. The over-all concept enables auto mated and cost-efficient installation of the solar field.