Risk assessment in a central receiver system

Sun is used as a renewable source for electricity production by the concentrated power systems (CPS). Among the CPS technologies available, the central receiver system (CRS) is becoming more popular within the options in the promising future of solar thermal industry. Basically the CRS technology consists in the concentration of sunrays on the receiver by reflecting them in heliostats’ surfaces (mirrors). The reflections can be differently classified based on the concept of human-interacting situations, e.g. the reflection aimed the sky, reflections from one single heliostat, the reflected irradiance from the receiver or concentrated solar radiation from the field of heliostats. Since solar radiation has the potential to interact positively and/or negatively with biological human systems, and adding that CPS facilities are usually located in sunny environments, those situations might exhibit scenarios of potential risks for human health. The workers sometimes developed their duties under lower protection. Those stages could happen, for instance, to people located up in the central tower, workers who stand in front of a heliostat surface, and also people in the near surroundings. Based on simulations of the irradiance flux in a CRS, through the usage of software SolTRACE®, this paper aims to provide information about the assessment of eye exposures.