New applications and control strategies for large-scale CPV plants

The design of control systems in large-scale CPV power plants will be more challenging in the future. Reasons are the increasing size of power plants, the requirements of grid operators, new functions, and new technological trends in industrial automation or communication technology. Concepts and products from fixed-mounted PV can only partly be adopted since control systems for sun-tracking installations are considerable more complex due to the higher quantity of controllable entities. The objective of this paper is to deliver design considerations for next generation control systems. Therefore, the work identifies new applications of future control systems categorized into operation, monitoring and maintenance domains. The key-requirements of the technical system and the application layer are identified. In the resulting section, new strategies such as a more decentralized architecture are proposed and design criteria are derived. The contribution of this paper should allow manufacturers and research institutes to consider the design criteria in current development and to place further research on new functions and control strategies precisely.