The SOLARX consortium have been recently reunited for the 1st review meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting was hosted by Fraunhofer ISE and we took the oportunity to interview the esteemed SOLARX partner Maitane Ferreres who shed light on her role and responsibilities within the project by applying her knowledge as PhD student at .
The Concentrating Systems and Technologies group at Fraunhofer ISE has more than 10 years of experience in the design, development and testing of components, concentrating systems and measurement techniques, as well as a strong background in dynamic system modelling, advanced control strategies and monitoring, yield and techno-economic assessment of concentrating thermal systems and power plants.
In the SOLARX project, Fraunhofer ISE is developing a Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) nowcasting system that uses real-time DNI measurements, sky imager and satellite data to forecast up to one hour ahead. Fraunhofer ISE is also implementing an aiming algorithm for the three receivers, using reinforcement learning and meta-heuristic optimisation to adapt to the dynamic behaviour of the SOLARX system. The adaptive aiming will provide significant flexibility in distributing the available energy to the different receivers, depending on the real-time and near-future demand for electricity, hydrogen and heat. For precise flux control, Fraunhofer ISE will enhance the HelioControl approach (patented by F-ISE62) using HDR cameras and advanced computer vision techniques and integrate it into the solar management strategy.
