How it works
Light ends at the receiver. Everything else is downstream.
Two tiles can share a rail. They cannot share a fluid. The turbine, if it exists, sees stored oil. It does not see the sun.
The path
01 Field
Single-axis linear Fresnel. A pod is 40 m² of glass. Geometric concentration is collector area divided by illuminated receiver area. At 50× the rail is 8 meters by 100 millimeters, 0.80 m², not a small hole. Swap the tile and the mirrors do not move.
02 Cold tile, RC-E
Its own optic and its own cold plate. Photons hit a cell and leave as DC. The cell is kept cold on purpose. Coolant is modeled near 50–80 °C, for domestic hot water, floors, a greenhouse, or preheat. It has its own meter. It is forbidden in the oil tank. The model uses 24–32% of the light that reaches the cell, default 28%, after an optical efficiency of 0.62 on those acres only. There is no released drawing.
03 Dark tile, RC-T
A cavity and two DN15 tubes. Oil from 250 to 390 °C. The tile absorbs and extracts. Storage, chemistry, and any expander stay off the rail. Process heat does not need a turbine. This is the receiver that has a sheet.
04 Tanks
A hot tank and a cold tank. The factory takes heat when it needs it. What is already stored does not care that a cloud showed up. This loop is the product that can stand if every electrical idea fails.
05 Power block, PB-01
Optional. On the ground, after the tanks and a heat exchanger. Stored oil boils a second fluid. A catalogue scroll is the baseline. A boundary-layer disc may sit on the same header if it returns more net electrical energy per thermal energy taken from storage, and if it does not need constant service. The working fluid is not chosen. The disc is not the generator, and it is never at the focus.
The noon arithmetic
These are the only relations the allocation is allowed to use. They are a clear-noon scenario.
- Sun = area × DNI / 1000
- DC = Sun × f_E × 0.62 × cell
- Heat = Sun × (1 − f_E) × solar-to-heat
- Tank watts = Heat × cycle, and only if a power block exists
f_E is the share of acres on the cold tile. f_E + f_T = 1. Presets, not claims: 80/20, 60/40, 30/70, 0/100.
Optical efficiency 0.62 belongs only on the cold-tile acres. Solar-to-heat is a band from 39% to 50%, default 45%, and it already includes the mirrors. Do not multiply the oil acres by both.
At 100 m², 900 W/m², f_E = 0.60, cell 28%, heat 45%, cycle 15%: 9.4 kW DC, 16.2 kW of oil heat, 2.4 kW gross from the tank later. DC is before the inverter. Tank watts are before pumps. Coolant heat is not in this sum until it has its own measured meter.
The hourly year model uses a different optical expression. Do not weld the two models together to invent a new annual number.
Match the grade to the load
| RC-E coolant | about 50–80 °C | Warm water. Own hose. Not oil. |
|---|---|---|
| Class L | 80–150 °C | Water or glycol. Where the first calorimeter lives. A different hose from the cold tile. |
| Class M | 250–390 °C | Thermal oil, two tanks. Industrial heat. The first commercial receiver. |
| Later | 290 °C and up | Salt or particles. Not required. The field does not wait on them. |
A cell run hot enough to make Class-M oil is a dead electrical branch. Hotter is not a virtue if the job was a shower.
What has to stay true
- Receiver area is sized from collector area and concentration before anyone draws a hole.
- Nothing that can live on the ground is allowed to live in the focal line.
- Both tiles fit the same mechanical datum. A dead cell or a dead tube does not retire the field.
- The two loops are never drawn as one pipe.
- The water rig does not generate watts. It closes an energy balance.
- Drawings of the disc are pictures. The sheets are here.