Development of training simulator software for molten salt parabolic trough test platform

Abstract

Operators of a solar-thermal power plant bear a high responsibility as they are in charge of the plant integrity, the safety of staff and optimal performance. At the same time, the complexity of such plants is very high. Thus, skilled operators are needed to understand what they do and, especially, how to react in non-standard plant conditions. Training the operators for these situations is very important for trouble-free operation. Those items become particularly crucial for testing of parabolic trough plants with molten salt as working fluid, as they inherit the danger of HTF freezing at normal ambient conditions. DLR developed a training simulation software as a platform to train the operators in dealing with various scenarios and test automation concepts for plant control for the test facility in the HPS2 project. The simulator software features a detailed model for transient simulation of the solar field based on DLR's Virtual Solar Field (VSF), a simulator management system and a human-machine interface (HMI). VSF communicates via a standard TCP/IP interface with the simulator management. The plant model features detailed modelling of the hydraulic network and storage system, alarm functions and control logics derived from the functionality of the test plant. The HMI is designed according to the real process control software. Simulations with measured weather data validated the correct behavior of the physical models. To understand the behavior of the plant, the plant model can be completely manually operated. Various weather scenarios can be loaded to show difficulties of transient situations, like a sudden direct normal irradiation (DNI) rise or drop. This enables the trainer to show real operation scenarios of the molten salt plant during the training course without endangering the test facility.