William (Bill) Hamilton joined the Thermal Sciences Group at NREL in 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher. His work at NREL includes the development of models to evaluate performance and optimize design, dispatch, and operation of concentrating solar power (CSP) energy systems. As a graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines, Bill collaborated with NREL to develop a dispatch optimization model to maximize revenue from CSP system operations using solar resource forecasts, electricity pricing, and system constraints. His research experience is in the fields of thermal system modeling, deterministic mixed-integer programming, and CSP system design using derivative-free optimization algorithms.

Research Interests

Design optimization of CSP and CSP-photovoltaic hybrid systems

CSP system operations and dispatch optimization

Power cycle performance modeling

Grid integration of CSP technologies

Solar field aiming and layout modeling and optimization

Education

Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Operations Research, Colorado School of Mines

M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

B.S., Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics, University of Kansas

Featured Work

Dispatch optimization of concentrating solar power with utility-scale photovoltaics, Optimization and Engineering (2019)

Black-Box Optimization for Design of Concentrating Solar Power and Photovoltaic Hybrid Systems with Optimal Dispatch Decisions, 25th SolarPACES Conference (2019)