Overheating Prevention in Solar Collectors Using a Hybrid Predictive Controller
Abstract
This paper proposes a new method for avoiding overheating of the heat transfer fluid on solar thermal energy collectors. The proposed strategy is based on a combination of partial and total defocusing of the collectors in a single Practical Nonlinear Model Predictive Control structure. Simulation results are used to show the advantages of the proposed formulation. The controller is evaluated with a highly accurate simulation setup and it is shown that the hybrid controller incorporates the reference tracking performance and has less computation time than the combined controller formulations. Moreover, it is less affected by the undetected changes in mirror efficiency