Modelling analysis of a solar thermal power plant

This paper looks into the modelling of the ACUREX distributed solar collector field at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA). ACUREX possesses resonance characteristics that lie well within the desired control bandwidth and quite commonly is modelled by dividing the receiver tube in the solar collector field into a number of segments. However, the number of segments has varied significantly in the literature. This paper provides an open-loop and closed-loop analysis with the aim of finding the number of segments needed to adequately model the resonance characteristics.