Compact heat exchangers have a wide range of applications where standard control strategies typically rely on the knowledge of the heat transfer model and thus on the overall heat transfer coefficient. In particular for compact plate heat exchangers, the overall heat transfer coefficient strongly varies with the manufacturer's plate design and has to be identified by means of extensive measurements. This paper presents an alternative approach for the control of compact heat exchangers which can be implemented without the knowledge of the heat transfer behavior and is robust against changes in the coolant supply system. For this, a model based control strategy is presented which relies on the total thermal energy stored in the fluids of the heat exchanger as control variable instead of the outlet temperature. Furthermore, two methods are developed in order to estimate the total thermal energy, one based on a Kalman Filter and the other one on quasi-static considerations. Finally, the proposed control and estimation strategies are validated by means of simulation and measurement results on an industrial plate heat exchanger. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.