Solar energy collector systems

Motivated by the growing interest on renewable energy, the structure and working principles of different types of industrial solar thermal plants are reviewed, including distributed collector solar fields, direct steam generation with distributed solar collectors, solar towers, and solar furnaces. The structure of the controllers for distributed collector solar fields is explained by identifying the manipulated variable, the process output, the accessible and non-accessible disturbances and the control objectives. In the real of these plants, it is explained why adaptive control is important and a literature review of this topic, that forms the core of the book, is made.