The Performance Check (PC) method can be used for a simple check of the collector array performance of a solar thermal plant. It has been proposed recently as an input to a new ISO standard. This fact sheet provides an application of the PC method to large collector arrays. The goal of this fact sheet is to evaluate the methodology and provide practical insights for the application of the PC method.

Overview on the control of large-scale thermal plants, limited to plants feeding into DH networks as well as their key components, i.e. the actual collector circuit and the heat exchanger between primary and secondary circuit.

This fact sheet presents three in situ test methods for solar collectors and solar collector arrays, namely In situ Collector Certification (ICC), Performance Check for Collector Arrays (PC) and Dynamic Collector Array Test (D-CAT). A comparison is made regarding their scopes and use cases, methodologies and outcomes, which could serve as a decision-making aid for stakeholders in selecting the procedure that best suits their needs. The analysis shows that the methods do not contradict, but rather complement each other.

Procedures to give power output guarantees for large collector fields and heat exchangers
Procedures to check power output guarantees for large collector fields and heat exchangers.

Recommendations for an automatic monitoring process of solar thermal systems are given - starting from sensors to data acquisition, data storage, computation of benchmarks and fault detection.

Accurate and complete performance evaluation is playing a major role in the further development of concentrating solar collectors. To ensure dependable test results, an appropriate testing and evaluation procedure is required. Moreover, the selection and installation of suitable  measurement instrumentation are essential for obtaining reliable data for the performance evaluation. The quality of the measurement instrumentation greatly influences the representativeness of the test results. Details on the measurement instrumentation recommended for the testing of low-temperature solar collectors have already been provided in the testing standard EN ISO 9806:2013.