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Control of Solar Energy Systems

Part of the book series: Advances in Industrial Control ((AIC))

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Abstract

This chapter describes the main control strategies used for two of the most promising fields for solar energy: solar furnaces for material testing and treatment and solar-based refrigeration systems.

A solar furnace is a highly concentrating facility made up of a collector system with tracking (usually with a varying number of flat-faceted heliostats) and a static parabolic concentrating system at the focal spot of which a high percentage of the solar energy collected by the collector system is concentrated within a small area. One attenuator (shutter) can be used between the collector system and the concentrator to control the amount of energy used for heating samples placed at the focal spot. A test table, movable in three dimensions, is placed in the area of the focal spot within the test zone.

Air conditioning consumes a lot of electrical energy. An important factor of conditioning systems is the relationship between solar irradiance and the ambient temperature and the refrigeration demand (related to temperature). Most people use their air conditioning units when it is hot, and this high ambient temperature usually occurs together with high solar radiation during daytime. In a passive solar energy system such as solar collectors, solar radiation is the main energy source, and it is therefore, appropriate as the energy source for a cooling system. Among the multiple methods existing for refrigeration using solar radiation, one of the most successful is based on an absorption machine which produces cold water at the output from hot water previously heated by the Sun at the input. This chapter describes the main strategies used to control solar refrigeration systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    σ=5.67⋅10−8 W/(m2 K4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Escuela Superior de Ingenieros, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

    Prof. Eduardo F. Camacho & Prof. Francisco R. Rubio

  2. Departamento de Lenguajes y Computación, Escuela Superior de Ingeniería, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain

    Manuel Berenguel

  3. Plataforma Solar de Almería, Centro Europeo de Ensayos de Energía Solar, CIEMAT, Tabernas, Spain

    Diego Martínez

Authors
  1. Prof. Eduardo F. Camacho
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  2. Manuel Berenguel
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  3. Prof. Francisco R. Rubio
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  4. Diego Martínez
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Correspondence to Eduardo F. Camacho .

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Camacho, E.F., Berenguel, M., Rubio, F.R., Martínez, D. (2012). Other Solar Applications. In: Control of Solar Energy Systems. Advances in Industrial Control. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-916-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-916-1_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-915-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-916-1

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