Advanced Control Of Solar Plants

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology impacts all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. This volume by Professor Eduardo F. Camacho and his colleagues Manuel Berenguel and Francisco R. Rubio is an exemplar of what an Advances in Industrial Control monograph should be. In it the control of a thermal solar facility is used to study the performance obtainable from an interesting range of control algorithms. These methods range from the conventional PID controller, through to model-based predictive and robust optimal control methods and finishing with two fuzzy logic based control techniques. The scientific methodology applied is modelling, simulation and plant implementation. In the last chapter, a rigorous approach for a comparative study is described involving a careful selection of performance metrics. The text is rich in relevant up-to-date source material, and contains many thought-provoking comments. The presentation is well-balanced, impartial and very readable.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology impacts all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. This volume by Professor Eduardo F. Camacho and his colleagues Manuel Berenguel and Francisco R. Rubio is an exemplar of what an Advances in Industrial Control monograph should be. In it the control of a thermal solar facility is used to study the performance obtainable from an interesting range of control algorithms. These methods range from the conventional PID controller, through to model-based predictive and robust optimal control methods and finishing with two fuzzy logic based control techniques. The scientific methodology applied is modelling, simulation and plant implementation. In the last chapter, a rigorous approach for a comparative study is described involving a careful selection of performance metrics. The text is rich in relevant up-to-date source material, and contains many thought-provoking comments. The presentation is well-balanced, impartial and very readable.

This book discusses control and optimization techniques in the broadest sense, covering new theoretical results and the applications of newly developed methods for PV systems. Going beyond classical control techniques, it promotes the use of more efficient control and optimization strategies based on linearized models and purely continuous (or discrete) models. These new strategies not only enhance the performance of the PV systems, but also decrease the cost per kilowatt-hour generated.

Control of Solar Energy Systems details the main solar energy systems, problems involved with their control, and how control systems can help in increasing their efficiency. Thermal energy systems are explored in depth, as are photovoltaic generation and other solar energy applications such as solar furnaces and solar refrigeration systems. This second and updated edition of Advanced Control of Solar Plants includes new material on: solar towers and solar tracking; heliostat calibration, characterization and offset correction; solar radiation, estimation, prediction, and computation; and integrated control of solar plants. This new edition contains worked examples in the text as well as proposed exercises and simulation models and so will be of great use to the student and academic, as well as the industrial practitioner.

This volume contains the proceedings of Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems 2006: the 2nd IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems, organized in Alghero (Italy) on June 7-9, 2006. ADHS is a series of triennial meetings that aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with a background in control and computer science to provide a survey of the advances in the field of hybrid systems, and of their ability to take up the challenge of analysis, design and verification of efficient and reliable control systems. ADHS'06 is the second Conference of this series after ADHS'03 in Saint Malo. 65 papers selected through careful reviewing process Plenary lectures presented by three distinguished speakers Featuring interesting new research topics

Control of Solar Energy Systems details the main solar energy systems, problems involved with their control, and how control systems can help in increasing their efficiency. Thermal energy systems are explored in depth, as are photovoltaic generation and other solar energy applications such as solar furnaces and solar refrigeration systems. This second and updated edition of Advanced Control of Solar Plants includes new material on: solar towers and solar tracking; heliostat calibration, characterization and offset correction; solar radiation, estimation, prediction, and computation; and integrated control of solar plants. This new edition contains worked examples in the text as well as proposed exercises and simulation models and so will be of great use to the student and academic, as well as the industrial practitioner.

This book describes methods for adaptive control of distributed-collector solar fields: plants that collect solar energy and deliver it in thermal form. Controller design methods are presented that can overcome difficulties found in these type of plants: they are distributed-parameter systems, i.e., systems with dynamics that depend on space as well as time; their dynamics is nonlinear, with a bilinear structure; there is a significant level of uncertainty in plant knowledge. Adaptive methods form the focus of the text because of the degree of uncertainty in the knowledge of plant dynamics. Parts of the text are devoted to design methods that assume only a very limited knowledge about the plant. Other parts detail methods that rely on knowledge of the dominant plant structure. These methods are more plant specific, but allow the improvement of performance. Adaptive Control of Solar Energy Collector Systems demonstrates the dynamics of solar fields to be rich enough to present a challenge to the control designer while, at the same time, simple enough to allow analytic work to be done, providing case studies on dynamics and nonlinear control design in a simple and revealing, but nontrivial way. The control approaches treated in this monograph can be generalized to apply to other plants modelled by hyperbolic partial differential equations, especially process plants in which transport phenomena occur, plants like dryers, steam super-heaters and even highway traffic. An important example, used repeatedly throughout the text, is a distributed-collector solar field installed at Plataforma Solar de Almeria, located in southern Spain. The control algorithms laid out in the text are illustrated with experimental results generated from this plant. Although the primary focus of this monograph is solar energy collector, the range of other systems which can benefit from the methods described will make it of interest to control engineers working in many industries as well as to academic control researchers interested in adaptive control and its applications.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology impacts all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. In Europe, and soon in the United States, power system deregulation is becoming widespread. This involves the privatisation of former public power utilities and the creation of power markets. The United Kingdom has recently undergone this transformation and the countries of the European Union are being encouraged to follow this deregulation policy. This volume Advanced Load Dispatch for Power Systems and its companion volume Control of Modem Integrated Power Systems both by Professor E. Mariani and Professor S.S. Murthy are therefore very timely additions to the power system literature and to the Advances in Industrial Control series.