2018 Annual American Control Conference (ACC)
June 27–29, 2018. Wisconsin Center, Milwaukee, USA
Real-time optimization of a solar-natural gas hybrid power plant to
enhance solar power utilization
Khalid Rashid, Moataz N. Sheha, Kody M. Powell, Member, AICHE

Abstract— A dynamic model of a natural gas/solar hybrid
system was developed using heat integration and smart flow
control. Natural gas was used as a supplemental fuel, which
enhanced the reliability of the system and increased the power
block cycle efficiency through the use of higher temperatures.
In this work, the synergy of the two energy sources (solar and
natural gas) was exploited with real-time optimization (RTO).
A quadratic programming-based optimizer was used to re-
direct heat to the steam generator or to boiler feedwater pre-
heating as the optimizer dictates. During low solar conditions,
the RTO directs the solar heat to the lower temperature heat
sink (the boiler feedwater preheater) to make better use of the
solar heat. During high solar conditions, the solar heat flows
through the steam generator (the high-temperature heat sink)
and to the boiler feedwater pre-heater in series. The
optimization is more effective at low irradiance conditions
(morning, evening, winter, cloud cover etc.) because it is able to
identify conditions that maximize solar utilization. Yearly
results demonstrate the model observed an improvement of
10% in terms of solar to electric efficiency (STE) and 10.7% in
solar fraction. Optimization increased the solar share and
maximized greener energy.
I. INTRODUCTION
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the depletion of
limited fossil fuel is leading the world in search of renewable
alternatives for a sustainable and cleaner future in the energy
sector [1]. Various countries are also implementing policy
and tax pressure to reduce environmental hazards and GHG
emissions [2]. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology is
promising, considering the technological advancement and
reduction of cost [3]. Among solar technologies, CSP is
preferred in the case of large-scale electricity production [4].
One of the key drawbacks of pure solar technology is the
intermittent supply of energy. Hybridizing with fossil fuel
can overcome the barrier of the poor reliability of a pure solar
plant [5]. Hybridization enables the plant to operate with
more flexibility and shift the supply according to the demand
of power consumption. Among fossil fuels, natural gas and
renewable hybrid systems can be a key element for the
transition towards cleaner energy. Approximately 20% of
*
Research supported by the Utah Governor’s Office of Energy
Development.
K. Rashid is with the Chemical Engineering department,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City Utah 84112 USA (phone: 385-
888-1461; e-mail: khalid.rashid@utah.edu).
M N. Sheha is with the Chemical Engineering department,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City Utah 84112 USA (e-mail:
moataz.sheha@utah.edu)
Kody M. Powell is with the Chemical Engineering department,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City Utah USA (phone: 801-581-3957
e-mail: kody.powell@utah.edu).
978-1-5386-5428-6/$31.00 ©2018 AACC
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electric power generation is produced through natural gas.
Due to high shale gas production in recent years, the price of
natural gas is at the lowest within a decade. It is estimated
that there is a reserve of natural gas that can last from 80 to
250 years [6]. Due to declining price and increased reserve,
natural gas plants have caused a lot of coal-fired plants to
switch [7]. Hybridizing natural gas with parabolic trough
technology enables external steam superheating which
reduces the solar area; hence the capital cost can be a reduced
[8]. Extensive modeling and optimization studies of CSP and
natural gas hybrid system are somewhat sparse in the
literature. Recently, a thermodynamic study was done on a
desalination plant where a natural gas-solar hybrid plant was
used for power production [9]. However little research has
been done on the developing a smart design and optimization
of natural gas/ solar hybrid plants.
This study demonstrates that the performance of the
solar/natural gas hybridized plant is enhanced by
implementing the solution obtained from real-time
optimization (RTO) into the heat transfer fluid flow of the
system. In order to implement optimization to the model, a
well-fitted relation between the output, disturbance, and
decision variables are needed to predict the output. Multiple
least squares method was used to fit the model. Having the
natural gas hybridized with solar enables the plant to produce
electricity 24 hours a day according to the demand and adds a
degree of freedom, which can be used to enhance the
performance of the plant.
II. OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM
A. System description
1) Plant overview
In this study, a 100 MW natural gas /solar hybrid power
plant situated in the southwestern part of USA was optimized
by controlling the flow of the heat transfer fluid, Therminol
VP1. This system is inherently transient, as it operates with
solar energy, which is intermittent in nature, and the plant
operates at a wide range of temperatures and flow rates. The
system description is shown in Figure 1. Different
components of the solar hybrid plant and the flow of
steam/water and heat transfer fluid are shown. When there is
sunlight, the heat transfer fluid (HTF) Therminol VP1 passes
through the solar collector and gets heated. The mirrors are
used to concentrate sunlight on the absorber. The hot fluid
then passes through the steam generator providing the steam
heat. Then the HTF passes through the solar preheater,
heating up the steam, and recirculates to the solar collector.
When there is less solar energy, a fraction of the heat transfer
fluid bypasses the steam generator and goes directly to the
solar preheater. The steam is generated through the steam
boiler then superheated at the superheater and is used in
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producing electricity through the high pressure (HP) turbine.
The outlet steam passes through the reheater maintains the
steam temperature (at 824 K). The steam is divided between
the closed heat exchanger and IP turbine. The outlet steam is
further divided between the low-pressure (LP) turbine and
low temperature boiler feedwater (BFW) preheater based
upon controlling the BFW temperature. The outlet steam
from the LP turbine is condensed to water and sent to the
high temperature BFW preheater. Then the steam passes
through the closed heat exchanger and solar preheater. The
steam outlet of the solar preheater enters the economizer to
achieve the desired temperature.
Figure 1: A schematic of the hybrid system components and flow
The steam from the economizer outlet recirculates back to
the boiler. Fundamental energy and mass conservation
equations are used to simulate and design different
components of the plant.
2) Control of the system
Due to the inherently transient nature of solar energy and
other disturbances in the system like solar irradiance, ambient
temperature, wind speed, etc., it is essential to have good
control in the system to maintain desired temperatures and
power output. The solar trough uses a feed forward plus
feedback control to maintain the HTF temperature output at
the desired set point. The feedback controller responds by
maintaining the mass flow rate in response to the transmitter
of solar irradiance. PID control is used through IMC tuning
to offset disturbances. The steam drum has a master
controller that regulates the steam flow rate based on the
power output signal from the slave controller. The
superheater and reheater maintain the steam temperature
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through regulating hot air flow from the secondary firebox.
When the solar irradiance is low, the boiler ramps up gas
firing to maintain the desired temperatures and fulfill the
demand of electricity. On the other hand, when there is high
DNI, the boiler backs down. Hence, the secondary firebox
ramps up gas firing to get heated air in order to maintain the
desired temperatures
Figure 2: Schematic of the process control in the system to get the
desired output
B) Optimization methods
The hybrid model ran for a year of simulation time. The
input variables that were perturbed were the temperature set
point of the solar collector, HTF output temperature (Tsp),
solar irradiance (DNI), fraction of HTF entering the steam
generator (f), and the ambient temperature (Tamb). Here DNI
and Tamb are disturbances. Tsp and f are decision variables.
The output collected is the total solar power (Sp) from the
plant. The perturbed data was collected every four hours to
ensure that steady state was reached before data collection.
Hence, a model fit was obtained from the data where solar
power is the function of the input variables as stated in
equation 1.
Sp = f (Tsp , DNI, Tamb, f) (1)
The following equation fits with the data obtained from the
model:
Sp = 349 − 0.02 Tsp + 0.00124 DNI − 2.4 Tamb −
0.03f + 4.16 Tsp2+ 1.7 DNI 2+ 0.004 Tamb 2 −7.5
f2+ 0.0001 DNIf (2)
 . percent meaning the total flow is directed to the steam
generator.

Figure 3: Parity plot of predicted versus actual solar power

The multiple least squares method was used for fitting the
data. Figure 3 shows the parity plot predicted power with the Figure 4: Optimized result for DNI=400 W/m2 and ambient
temperature of 300 K
actual power produced for the validation of the dataset. The
R2 obtained is 0.95, suggesting it is a good fit for the
quadratic model. Although the model does have some
correlated residuals, the model is reasonably accurate, given
that it is restricted to be quadratic. In order to optimize the
model, solar power is maximized in terms of inputs using
quadprog in Matlab as the quadratic program (QP) solver.
Tsp sets the outlet temperature of the HTF from the
parabolic trough. At higher solar irradiance, the PID
controller of the parabolic trough increases the mass flow
rate to control the temperature of HTF at the desired set
point. f is the split fraction of HTF entering the steam
generator. In the non-optimized model, Tsp is set to a
constant value of 665K and f is kept at 100%, meaning the
full HTF flow is directed towards the steam generator. With
that functional dependence, the general form of the
optimization is:
Max Sp
Figure 5: Optimized result for DNI=100 W/m2 and ambient
590 < Tsp <665 (temperature set point in K) temperature

0 < f < 100 (Fraction in terms of percentage) (3)

At lower DNI, as shown in Figure 5, the total flow is

A. Improvements in performance due to optimization
The surface plots shows the results of optimization for a
fixed direct normal irradiance (DNI) of 400 W/m2 and Tamb
=300 K in Figure 4. From the equation and by incorporating
in optimization the change of ambient temperature effects are
minimal. However, from the results, it was observed DNI
input affects the result significantly. The lighter color
indicates higher solar production in the surface plots. The
optimal temperature Tsp is always set to the 665 K for all
DNI. The HTF to the steam generator fraction is zero at
lower DNI and the fraction increases between 350 to 450
W/m2 DNI as shown in figure 4. Figure 6 shows that at higher
DNIs the fraction of HTF to the steam generator is 100
directed toward solar pre-heater. The optimizer decides that
because the temperature of the HTF is lower than the steam
entering the steam generator. It is more favorable to use the
HTF to pre-heat the water at the solar pre-heater rather than
collecting heat from the steam in the steam generator.
Figure 7 reaffirms that by showing the optimized power
increases only at DNIs lower than 500 W/m2. Hence, it is
expected that in the main hybrid model, the excess power
obtained due to optimization will be mainly at the lower
DNIs. At higher DNI (more 500 W/m2) both the optimized
model and mon-optimized model should have similar
performance. This assumption is reaffirmed in Figure 7.

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 Figure 8: DNI profile for January 1st and June 1st for Las Vegas

A. Mass flow of HTF

Figure 6: Optimized result for DNI=900 W/m2 and ambient

temperature of 300 K

Figure 9: Mass flow rate of the heat transfer fluid in January 1 st

In general, the total mass flow rate of the HTF follows the
DNI pattern, meaning higher DNI leads to a total higher mass
flow rate and vice versa. On January 1st, the mass flow rate of
HTF in the steam generator is minimal or zero at lower DNIs.
The optimizer directs the majority of the flow to the solar
preheater. As the DNI increases, more than 500 W/m2 the
mass flow rate peaks to a maximum in the steam generator
because both the DNI and the fraction entering steam
generator f are high. Subsequently, the flow drops back to the
minimum when the DNI starts falling towards the end of the
day. The solar irradiance reduces as the sun goes down; the
mass flow rate of HTF also peaks up at the solar preheater
Figure 7: Power production optimized versus non-optimized at and subsequently drops to the minimum level. This follows
different DNIs the surface plots as mentioned earlier in Figures 4, 5 and 6.

III. RESULT AND ANALYSIS

Two days of the year, in winter and summer respectively,
January 1st and June 1st were chosen to be analyzed to assess
the performance improvement of the natural gas/ solar hybrid
model due to optimization in Las Vegas. The solar irradiance
data were collected from NREL database [10]. These
particular days were chosen, as the DNI data for the days are
different in terms of value and distribution as shown in
Figure 8. On January 1st, the DNI rises later in comparison to
June 1st. The peak value of DNI and the area of the curve is
higher for June. Figure 10: Mass flow rate of the heat transfer fluid in June 1 st

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On June 1st a small amount of HTF mass flow in the solar
preheater at the beginning of DNI rise is observed, and the
rest of the HTF flow is diverted toward the boiler in Figure
10. From Figure 8, it is observed that the DNI is greater than
zero and less than 500 W/m2 for a short period of time both
in the beginning and end of the day, enabling the optimizer
to make an impact for a short period. This explains the small
mass flow rate of HTF into the solar preheater.
B. Solar Power Production
Figure 11: Solar Power production in January 1st optimized versus
non-optimized model
On January 1st as shown in Figure 8 significant portion of
the day the DNI is below 500 W/m2. Hence, for a large
portion of the day optimization improves the solar power
production compared to the non-optimized plant as
observed in Figure 11. The solar power production
improves by 25.56 % for the optimized case.
Figure 12: Solar Power production in June 1st optimized versus non-
optimized model
Figure 12 shows that in June 1st there is a slight
improvement in the optimized model for a short period of
time. Otherwise, the optimized and non-optimized model
has almost similar power production. This implies that
during summer at higher DNI, the optimization has a
lesser impact. The performance of the optimized model
improves by only 1.04 %.
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C. Results for a year
In Figure 13, which shows the solar fraction for the
optimized and non-optimized case, there is a general trend of
the solar fraction increasing during the summer and
decreasing towards the winter. This is because summer
months have higher solar irradiance days compared to winter.
The optimized case always has a higher solar fraction
regardless of the month. However, the improvement of solar
fraction solely depends on the DNI patterns throughout the
month.
As opposed to Figure 13, we observe from Figure 14 that
the overall efficiency of the plant has a general trend of
decreasing during the summer and increasing during the
winter. Because natural gas is more energy efficient fuel
compared to solar, and in winter, more natural gas is used, as
there is lower solar irradiance. However, the overall
efficiency of the optimized plant is slightly higher than the
non-optimized case. The effect of overall efficiency increase
is less in optimization because the plant is a 100 MW
capacity and solar fraction results indicate that natural gas is
the major contributor to energy production. If the demand for
electricity is low (less than 100 MW) less power would be
needed and the solar fraction will increase. In that case,
optimization will have a higher impact on the overall
efficiency.
Solar to electric efficiency (STE) is the amount of energy
produced from the solar part of the plant divided by the total
energy obtained from the sun. No general trend was observed
for STE over the months in Figure 15. In summer, the
optimized solar to electric efficiency is higher than the non-
optimized case. In winter, they are slightly higher. This again
relates to the fact of having a higher solar share during the
summer enables the optimizer to obtain a higher STE.
Figure 13: Monthly Solar fraction for optimized versus non-optimized
case
 easy to implement on existing natural gas plants without the
need of extensive capital investment by sharing infrastructure
and integrating energy.
The quality of the optimization depends on the data fitting
of the model. An R2 value of 0.95 implies that this model is a
good data fit. Hence, the model optimizes the solar power
output well. By performing an optimized operation for a day,
the hybrid plant demonstrated significant (25%)
performance improvement when there was low solar
irradiance at winter. At summer or at higher DNI, the
optimized plant performance was better in comparison to the
non-optimized plant but to a lesser extent (1%). This agrees
with the study performed by Usaola J et al [11]. The
Figure 14: Monthly efficiency graph for optimized versus non- dynamic real-time optimization inputs optimum set points
optimized case
for the decision variables and ensure to maximize the solar
output by energy integration.
The yearly results of the solar fraction, STE and overall
efficiency demonstrates that the optimized model increases
the performance through improving solar fraction (10.7%)
and solar to electric efficiency (10%). The overall efficiency
improvement is less (1.5%) due to optimization. However,
the efficiency improvement depends on the capacity of the
plant. Hence, the optimized hybrid model can ensure the
reliability of the power supply during cloudy or night, when
there is not enough solar power available and the optimized
results improve the solar power production leading to
greener energy.

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energy when there is not enough supply. CSP technology is

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