Hybrid control for a solar desalination plant

The AQUASOL solar desalination plant at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (Spain) is based on a multi-effect desalination technology that combines gas and solar thermal energy to achieve a desired distillation flow. The process hybrid behavior involves interactions between continuous and discrete dynamics. This paper proposes a two-layer hierarchical scheme; the first layer decides the most suitable operating mode, and the second is for reaching local references.