Competitiveness of solar energy is one of current main research topics. Overall efficiency
of solar plants can be improved by using advanced control strategies. To design and tuning properly
advanced control strategies, a mathematical model of the plant is needed. The model has to fulfill
two important points: (1) It has to reproduce accurately the dynamics of the real system; and (2) since
the model is used to test advanced control strategies, its computational burden has to be as low as
possible. This trade-off is essential to optimize the tuning process of the controller and minimize the
commissioning time. In this paper, the modeling of the large-scale commercial solar trough plants
Mojave Beta and Mojave Alpha is presented. These two models were used to test advanced control
strategies to operate the plants.Comisión Europea OCONTSOLAR 78905
