Parabolic Trough Collector Defocusing Analysis: Two control stages vs four control stages

Abstract 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), which must be kept below a maximum temperature. Although the temperature of the fluid, in general, will be controlled by modifying the flow-rate, when the plant is saturated HTF temperature is kept under limits by defocusing of the collectors. In this paper, an analysis of the control of the defocus control applied to the different collectors is presented. A Model Predictive Control technique will be applied to control the temperature by defocusing two and four collectors in different situations. It is shown how controlling the temperature by defocusing only two collectors is not sufficient in all situations and that controlling by defocusing the four collectors solves this problem in addition to maintaining the defocus actions in areas with high control authority.