SÁNCHEZ DEL POZO FERNÁNDEZ , Adolfo Juan

Los objetivos de la tesis son el desarrollo de nuevas estrategias de control predictivo basadas en modelo y optimización de plantas solares parabólicas a gran escala. La tesis se centra en tres aspectos del control de plantas solares: (1) Desenfoque de los colectores, (2) control de plantas solares en presencia de limitaciones de potencia...

The majority of solar thermal plants which produce electricity and deliver it to the grid use parabolic trough technology. As examples of large scale solar trough plants we can mention the SOLANA power station (280 MW of electricity power with 6 hour of thermal storage) or the 280 MW Mojave solar complex. As stated by the National American...

Uno de los principales métodos para mejorar la eficiencia en el uso y aprovechamiento de la energía solar es la aplicación de técnicas avanzadas de control. En este trabajo se presenta un estado del arte de las aplicaciones de control predictivo en plantassolares de pequeña y gran escala. Se presentan además dos aplicaciones reales: una que se...

One of the current technological challenges is to make solar energy economical and competitive. Advanced control techniques may contribute in this direction by maximizing the electricity generated by using optimal control strategies. A number of research works have been developed concerning control and optimization of solar plants. Most of...

The estimation of unobservable states of a process is important when using control techniques that assume, said a priori, known values. The controllers based on the state space present good behavior and efficiency, even when the dynamics of the process are non-linear. One of the processes with non-linear dynamics and in which not all the states...

Unión Europea 789051

In solar thermal plants, as in any industrial process, it is important to maintain good control of the system and, more importantly, to have a good security system to avoid exceeding the safety limits of the components and avoid their degradation. In the case of solar thermal plants, one of the main components is the Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF),...

The main control objective in commercial solar parabolic plants is to track the average temperature of all the loops around a reference set by the operator, by manipulating the flow of a synthetic oil. Due to the large number of loops existing in current solar plants and the vast extension that they cover, obtaining a precise knowledge of every...

Optimal operation of a solar plant is generally understood as a tracking of the optimal working temperatures which maximize the net electric power. However, a commercial solar plant may receive a limitation from the Transmission System Operator due to saturation of the electrical grid. In these situations the plant moves to an operation mode in...

One of the main control objectives in parabolic trough solar thermal plants is to maintain the outlet temperature around an operating point. For this, a synthetic oil flow is used as the main control variable. However, another crucial system of the plant is the defocusing safety system of the collectors to prevent the oil temperature from...

Commercial solar plants produce energy around a nominal operating point in which the solar field outlet temperature is high and close to the thermal limit of the heat transfer fluid. The main control of the temperature is carried out by means of the fluid flow-rate that circulates through the solar field. Defocusing the collectors is normally...

One of the ways to improve the efficiency of solar energy plants is by using advanced control and optimization algorithms. In particular, model predictive control strategies have been applied successfully in their control. The control objective of this kind of plant is to regulate the solar field outlet temperature around a desired set-point....

The efficiency of the solar plants is conditioned by the control strategies applied in their operation. In this paper, an application of a Model Predictive Controller based on nonlinear models of the TCP-100 parabolic trough collector solar plant is presented as one example of the advanced control techniques that can contribute to enhance the...