Power tower solar collector systems typically employ a large number of heliostat-supported mirrors that reflect sunlight to a tower, by which electricity is directly or indirectly generated. Said heliostats are usually arranged on the ground along concentric arcs at different positions around the tower. To avoid blocking from arc to arc, the distance between these is an increasing function of radius. To track the position of the sun throughout the day, each heliostat moves to a configuration which reflects the sun toward the tower. Each heliostat is anchored to the ground by being attached to a structure that penetrates the ground. The anchoring maintains a desired orientation of the mirror during windy conditions.
In current systems, each heliostat is individually anchored to the ground by a penetrating structure. With ground penetrating anchors, installation of each ground penetrating structure supporting a heliostat is time and labor consuming, and can be rather costly. Furthermore, due to the large ground area typically used for installing a solar collector system, ground penetrating anchors scar the ground and may negatively affect plant and wildlife population at or surrounding the installation area.
Because of the arc-shaped and variable distance arrangement of heliostats, installation requires a laborious process of surveying the terrain for precise heliostat locations. Additionally, in current systems, each heliostat is independently supported by a mounting post. Accordingly, the structural strength for supporting the heliostat must be provided by the mounting post. The large reflective surfaces (which may be in excess of 100 m2) that are typically mounted on heliostats produce large torques on the mounting post as a result of wind loads. Such torques are typically proportional to the square of the radius of the reflective surface. To reduce the noted torque, a large number of independently supported smaller mirrors having small inter-mirror densities would be required to achieve the mirror density of a larger reflective surface without mechanical interference between heliostats and without producing undesirable optical qualities (e.g. shading and low blocking). However, such a large density arrangement of independently supported heliostats having smaller reflective surfaces can be costly and laborious to install and maintain.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a solar collector system that solves the problems associated with current solar collector systems discussed above.