Model Predictive Control For Direct Steam Generation in Paraboloidal Dishes

摘要

The control of solar thermal systems is challenging due to the non-linear dynamic behaviour of the heat transfer process occurring at the receivers, such as direct steam generation. Model predictive controllers can outperform classical control approaches by incorporating non-linear model behaviour and constraints. This study presents a model predictive controller based on a piecewise affine approximation of a direct steam generation receiver that explicitly incorporates constraints. Simulations in this study show that a piecewise affine approximation based model predictive controller outperforms both a MPC based on a linear approximation of the receiver and a classic state-space controller.