DYNAMICS OF OIL-BASED PARABOLIC TROUGH PLANTS - A DETAILED TRANSIENT SIMULATION MODEL

Abstract

The operation of oil-based parabolic trough solar power plants is strongly affected by transient effects which occur mainly due to load changes during fluctuating irradiation conditions. These transient effects often result in a reduction of the energy yield. Since in Spain an important number of plants are about to go into operation, it becomes more and more important to quantify these reductions. For this purpose, a dynamic model in the Modelica/Dymola environment has been set-up in which numerous transient effects are taken into account. The plant model is composed of several complex submodels representing the major components of the plant. Consequently, a complex control layer has been developed which is able to operate the plant automatically, even during bad weather periods. In the present conference paper a description of the plant model is given and its performance is demonstrated with first simulation results.