Optimal Start-Up Policies for a Solar Thermal Power Plant

Abstract

Sustainability and depletion of fossil fuels have propelled the use of renewable energy sources to meet energy demands. Solar radiation is perhaps the most economical and widely available alternative energy source. Energy in the form of solar radiation can be recovered using either photovoltaic or thermal processes. Nowadays, both approaches can only capture a small fraction of the available solar radiation. In this work, we have addressed the dynamic optimal operation of thermal solar plants during start-up. During a normal operating day when solar radiation becomes available, power should be available as soon as possible to meet consumer demands. One of the major problems related to thermal solar plants is the lack of power when solar radiation is off. To overcome this problem, energy storage tanks are considered in the design of the thermal plant. We assume that a conventional Rankine cycle can be used for power generation from low-temperature energy sources. In this work, a dynamic optimization framew...