Temperature homogenization of a solar trough field for performance improvement

The paper presents an original non linear model based optimization to homogenize the loop temperatures by manipulating the inlet valves of the loops. The nonlinear model is based on a distributed parameters model. In order to perform the optimization, temperature profiles of the loops and its reflectivities are needed. These are obtained by means of a Classification and Regression Trees (CARTs) trained with the full distributed parameters model. Simulations are carried out using a model of the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA) solar trough plant to show the results of the proposed control scheme, temperature homogenization and production benefit.