Control-Oriented Concentrated Solar Power Plant Model

Abstract

We model the dynamics of solar thermal plants-the first model covering all processes between market demand through power output at millisecond resolution-for the purpose of control design. Our model integrates solar reflectors, power tower, salt tank, boiler, turbine, generator, piping, and pumps along with the flows of energy and information between them. We show how our detailed model permits control designs that can potentially enhance the life of the power tower, and thereby aid in reducing generation costs of solar power to a level competitive to current electricity price. Our modeling also opens up several problems of control and optimization of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants that can quickly bring the maturity of CSPs near that of traditional coal-fired plants and aid their integration with the other power sources. We show some of this potential via simulations. Index Terms-Concentrated solar power (CSP), controloriented model. 1063-6536

Incorporating Concentrating Solar Power into High Renewables Penetrated Power System: A Chance-Constrained Stochastic Unit Commitment Analysis

“…A CSP station with TES collects direct normal irradiation (DNI) during the daytime by converting it into thermal power, which is partially stored in TES and generates electricity as needed. Even in the cloudy day or at night, large-capacity TES enables CSP station to shift solar energy between different days to satisfy the load demand [7,8]. Besides, the capital cost of TES in a CSP station is $15/kWh, which is 1/10 of grid-connected electricity storage cost [9].…”

Maximising dispatchability of combined solar power plants

“…Of interest is the tubular receiver (Ho and Iverson, 2014), which is a receiver made up of panels of small tubes, typically used for liquid heat transfer fluid. Heat transfer is typically calculated using energy balance equations, accounting for convective heat transfer between tube and fluid, as well as losses predominantly due to radiation and convection (Luo et al, 2016), (Jianfeng et al, 2010).…”

“…By contrast, thermocline storage consists of a single tank with hot fluid at the top and cold fluid at the bottom, with a gradient separating the two (Angelini et al, 2014). This form of TES is less expensive for the same volume of storage, but also less efficient (Luo et al, 2016). As two tank storage is easier to simulate, it is used here.…”

“…In practise, a controller would be used to vary the flow rate of liquid sodium to maintain the output temperature as DNI and flux on the receiver varies (Luo et al, 2016).…”

Dynamic modelling of cooling systems for concentrating solar power plants

“…Model-based predictive control (MPC) is a is a suitable control methodology to fulfil this objective due to CSP plant's inherent system complexity, multivariate nature, and many constraints. The development of MPC optimisation strategies for CSP Figure 1.3: Estimated levelised cost of energy (LCOE) for new generation resources, plants entering service in 2022 [6] is a largely unexplored and fresh area of research [16]. MPC requires computationally efficient dynamic models of each CSP Plant subsystem [16,24].…”