Increase In Electricity Production Research Articles

Process Modeling of an Innovative Power to LNG Demonstration Plant

The continuous increase in electricity production from renewable energy sources (RESs) introduces the intrinsic fluctuating characteristic of RESs in the electric power grid, causing nontrivial grid management issues (e.g., grid congestion). In this work, an innovative power to liquefied methane concept was developed, and process simulations for a 200 kWel demonstration plant were carried out. The proposed concept is based on water electrolysis to produce hydrogen, CO2 capture from air using solid adsorption materials, catalytic CO2 methanation, gas separation, and a single mixed refrigerant (SMR) liquefaction process. The gas separation unit produces an exhaust stream, rich in not only hydrogen and carbon dioxide but also methane, that is recycled to the methanation unit inlet. A thermodynamic analysis excluded the possibility of carbon deposition formation in the methanation reactor due to methane recirculation. The gas separation system was designed using a combination of temperature swing adsorption t...

Water consumption analysis of Moroccan concentrating solar power station

The development of solar power plants for electrical production is made through the new strategy of the Moroccan Kingdom, to limit its energy dependency. 2016 marks the start of the electricity production of the first plant Noor 1 in Ouarzazate city. This plant use the CSP technology, with parabolic through collector. To ensure its operation and guarantee its power supply, a large amount of water is needed. In this study analyze of the water consumption per hours during the twelve months of the year indispensable for electricity production of Noor 1 plant was carried out, by using System Advisor Model (SAM). Simulation results compared to industrial data allowed us to propose optimal recommendations concerning mainly the reduction of water consumption and increase electricity production. By exceeding the required amount of water by 2%, to produce about 487 GWh instead of an anticipated quantity equal to 500 GW, the operator have to minimize its consumption to gain 32 m3 of water which can be exploited in the new stations and at the same time increase its production by 13 GWh.

Power plant fuel consumption rate during load cycling

A major challenge in the modern power system is the load cycling (ramping down and up) of thermal power plants due to the increase in electricity production from renewable power plants and other sources. The motivation for this paper is to quantify the effect of this on fuel consumption and as a result, variable costs. In this study, an experimental method for determining the fuel flow rate and corresponding power unit characteristics in a load-ramping operating regime was introduced and experimentally tested. The method is based on the static pressure drop of flue gas flowing through some convective heating surfaces of a boiler being proportional to the gas velocity, that is, in turn, proportional to the mass fuel rate. Therefore, after measuring the pressure drop during a steady-state regime, for example, in a tubular air preheater as the heat surface that is less susceptible to contamination from particle laden gas flow, and at the same time calculating the fuel mass flow rate through an indirect heat balance, the two parameters can be interrelated. The semi-empirical relationship obtained in this way can then be used for determining the actual fuel mass flow rate during transient boiler loads. The proposed method was used to determine the technical and economical characteristics of a pulverized combustion power unit utilizing oil-shale. Large-scale experiments were conducted in a high-pressure pulverized combustion steam generator TP-101, with a rated capacity of 300 MWth. The dual-boiler unit load ramping was constrained to 2.5 MWel/min. The results show that during ramping down the load to 50% maximum continuous rating, the mean fuel consumption decreased by 10%, and during ramp-up back to 100% maximum continuous rating, the mean fuel consumption increased by 14%. The total increase in fuel consumption during ramping cycle at given conditions, was approximately 4%.

A boil-off gas utilization for improved performance of heavy duty gas turbines in combined cycle

The storage of the natural gas under liquid phase is widely adopted and one of the intrinsic phenomena occurring in liquefied natural gas is the so-called boil-off gas; this consists of the regasification of the natural gas due to the ambient temperature and loss of adiabacity in the storage tank. As the boil-off occurs, the so-called cold energy is released to the surrounding environment; such a cold energy could potentially be recovered for several end-uses such as cooling power generation, air separation, air conditioning, dry-ice manufacturing and conditioning of inlet air at the compressor of gas turbine engines. This paper deals with the benefit corresponding to the cooling down of the inlet air temperature to the compressor, by means of internal heat transfer recovery from the liquefied natural gas boil-off gas cold energy availability. The lower the compressor inlet temperature, the higher the gas turbine performance (power and efficiency); the exploitation of the liquefied natural gas boil-off gas cold energy also corresponds to a higher amount of air flow rate entering the cycle which plays in favour of the bottoming heat recovery steam generator and the related steam cycle. Benefit of this solution, in terms of yearly work and gain increase have been established by means of ad hoc developed component models representing heat transfer device (air/boil-off gas) and heavy duty 300 MW gas turbine. For a given ambient temperature variability over a year, the results of the analysis have proven that the increase of electricity production and efficiency due to the boil-off gas cold energy recovery has finally yield a revenue increase of 600,000€/year.

A DSM Test Case Applied on an End-to-End System, from Consumer to Energy Provider

Current decarbonisation goals have, in recent years, led to a tremendous increase in electricity production generated from intermittent Renewable Energy Sources. Despite their contribution to reducing society’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions they have been responsible for numerous challenges that the current electricity grid has to cope with. Flexibility has become a key mechanism to help in mitigating them. Real-time informed consumers can offer the needed flexibility through modifying their behaviour or by engaging with Demand Side Management (DSM) programs. The latter requires the intervention of several actors and levels of communication management which makes this task difficult from an implementation perspective. With this aim we built and tested a small scale system in our lab which represents a real end-to-end system from the consumer to the energy provider. We programmed the system according to the Object Identification System (OBIS) specification to obtain consumers’ consumption through smart meters with high frequency (one minute). This allows remote control of their appliances in order to reduce the total neighbourhood consumption during critical time periods of the day (peak time). These results and the realisation of a realistic end-to-end system open the way to more complex tests and particularly to the possibility of benchmarking them with other lab tests.

What are the Current Status and Future Prospects in Solar Irradiance and Solar Power Forecasting?

In the most countries around the world, solar photovoltaic power plants have a cost-competitive structure for providing energy access and for increasing electricity production. However, solar photovoltaic power integration requires the handling of power quality and stability problems due to its non-controllable and intermittent characteristics. At this point, the need for reliable solar irradiance and solar power forecasting is emerged for the optimal modeling and scheduling of solar photovoltaic power plants. For this purpose, this study conducts an exhaustive and up-to-date review of solar irradiance and solar power forecasting methods used in the literature. Although there are a plenty of review papers in the literature, differently, we have created the extensive and comparative literature tables considering very-short term, short-term, medium-term and long-term forecasting periods in this study. Furthermore, we have examined each paper in terms of its input data, forecasting interval, forecasting model, forecasting accuracy and forecasting results. As a result of overall assessments, this study provides complete and considerable information about the current status and future prospects in solar irradiance and solar power forecasting.

Performance study and comparative analysis of traditional and double-selective-coated parabolic trough receivers

Based on the simulated non-uniformity solar radiation flux distribution of the absorber by the Soltrace software using the Monte Carlo Ray-Trace Method, an innovative parabolic trough solar receiver that employs two solar selective coatings with different properties on the outer surface of the absorber is proposed. The concentration ratio and absorber temperature that influence optimal cut-off wavelengths of the solar selective coatings are quantitatively analyzed to optimize the property of the coating. The optimal cut-off wavelength increases with the concentration ratio, but drops with the increasing absorber temperature. The heat transfer process of receivers is numerically simulated to predict the thermal performance of evacuated receivers based on spectrum parameters heat transfer model. Heat loss simulation results show that: the double-selective-coated receiver can reduce heat loss and boost the collecting efficiency significantly compared with PTR70 receiver. When the temperature of absorber is 500 °C, the double-selective-coated receiver can reduce heat loss by 157.8 W/m and increase the collecting efficiency from 64.7% to 68.1%. The System Advisor Model annual simulation results indicate that double-selective-coated receivers can decrease the levelized cost of electricity of concentrating solar plants by 2.78%–7.34%, and increase electricity production by 2.94%–8.21% compared with traditional PTR70 receivers.

Denitrification of water in a microbial fuel cell (MFC) using seawater bacteria

The sea contains various microbes which have an ability to reduce and oxidize substances like iron, sulphur, and nitrate. Most of these processes happen in the seawater, but can also be applied for purification of wastewater. In the present work, a consortium of seawater bacteria has been used for the first time in a microbial fuel cell to reduce nitrate in synthetic water samples and produce electricity by oxidizing organic matter. The concentrations of nitrate and nitrite were reduced to well below their permissible limits. Moreover, the growth of the bacterial consortium in cathode causes an increased electricity production in the cell because of the increased bacterial activity. The performance of the cell with a bicarbonate buffered solution in the cathode was superior to that obtained with the commonly used phosphate buffered solution. As bicarbonate is the natural buffering agent found in the sea, the use of bicarbonate buffered solutions is eco-friendly. The same seawater bacterial consortium was used in both the anode and the cathode, confirming their adaptability to different environments. Unfortunately, denitrification was accompanied by the generation of high concentrations of ammonium in the anode and the cathode, probably because of the use of nitrogen gas for sparging the anolyte. This aspect merits further investigation.

Considering investment resources when assessing potential CO2 reductions of CHP – a case study

Combined heat and power (CHP) can increase electricity production efficiency and decrease global CO2 emissions. Studies have shown large unrealised economic CHP investment potentials. An assessment of profitable CO2 reduction based solely on net present value (NPV) implicitly assumes unlimited investment resources. This study analysed the impact of the assumption of unlimited/limited investment resources on the assessment of profitable reduction potential of global CO2 emissions due to CHP investment. The correlation between changes in direct and global fossil CO2 emissions was also analysed. This was done by evaluating alternative CHP and heat-only boiler investments in a district heating system. When investment resources were unlimited, NPV was used to determine whether an investment was profitable and to rank the profitability of the investment. When investment resources were limited, equivalent annual annuity ratio (EAAR) was used to rank the investment's profitability and determine whether its level of profitability was acceptable.The results showed that the profitability ranking of an investment can change depending on whether investment resources are considered unlimited or limited. Moreover, an investment with positive NPV may be regarded as insufficiently profitable when investment resources are limited. This could have an important impact on profitable CO2 reduction potential. Furthermore, when CHP investments are considered, local views on CO2 emissions may be counterproductive for global CO2 emission reductions.

Process Optimization for Pellets Production

Nowadays, it is important to make industries more and more energy efficient. When we look at pellet production, energy consumption improvements are those with the strongest effects. Optimization methods for drum dryers and combined heat and power plants (CHP) are offered in this paper, as these are the main thermal energy sources in pellet production.Drum dryers are used to dry sawdust used for pellet production. It is important to look at the efficiency of the drying process and the problems caused by human factor. A method of automatic drum dryer implementation is offered in the paper.However, CHP have proved to be more efficient for pellet production with reduced CO2 emissions when compared to drum dryers. CHP can be divided, based on consumer type as CHP in central heating system and industrial CHP. The former provides thermal energy for consumers in cities, and the latter provides it for local factories and industrial groups. There is a drop in thermal energy consumption over the summer, giving an opportunity to use the remaining thermal energy for cooling needs. Finding solutions to increase heat capacity is important to increase electricity production from CHP and improve plants’ economic efficiency. A solution offered in the paper is remaining thermal energy use in absorber coolers needs.

Economic Feasibility of a Compressed Air Energy Storage System Under Market Uncertainty: A Real Options Approach

Since the liberalization of electricity markets power prices are considered as highly volatile. Thus investment in new power plants is exposed to higher risks. Traditional capital budgeting methods lack the integration of flexibility. This can be overcome by applying real options analysis. In the context of an increasing electricity production by highly volatile renewable power plants, new solutions need to be found to ensure security of supply and to accommodate intermittent generation. Energy storage is seen as a possible solution. The Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology provides many key features that are relevant to deal with arising problems by renewables. Lately an advanced adiabatic version with higher roundtrip efficiencies has been discussed. However, high capital expenditures limit the economically viable implementation. As conventional CAES uses natural gas for production, it is exposed to price fluctuations on two markets. Depending on the configuration of component sizes, CAES storage units can be used for different purposes. A price model is set up to produce, in combination with the application of a Monte Carlo simulation, possible future price paths for power, natural gas and demand rate for minute reserve. Based on these price paths costs and revenues for different CAES applications are calculated. For the economic evaluation three different configurations are considered for both diabatic and adiabatic CAES. Investment in a diabatic CAES used for load-leveling purposes is found to be the most economical option.

Do They Still Matter? – Impact of Fossil Fuels on Electricity Prices in the Light of Increased Renewable Generation

AbstractDuring the last years, the German energy sector and especially its electricity market was affected by a major energy transition, the so called „Energiewende“. This transition led to an increase of electricity production from renewable sources and thereby affected the whole electricity market. Therefore, it provides lessons for countries, which are only beginning a similar transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The aim of this analysis is to assess if there still exists a relationship between fossil fuel and electricity prices. Due to possible structural breaks in the time series a minimum Lagrange Multiplier (LM) stationarity test is applied, which endogenously determines possible structural breaks. Subsequently a bootstrap approach is used to estimate confidence intervals (C.I.s) for the test statistic and the possible break dates. Furthermore, the stability of the cointegration vector is assessed with the test by Hansen and Johansen (

Exergy analysis of alternative configurations of a system coproducing synthetic fuels and electricity via biomass gasification, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and a combined-cycle scheme

Lignocellulosic biomass gasification followed by the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) synthesis is becoming a promising pathway to produce synthetic biofuels, having the potential of being coupled with combined-cycle strategies in order to coproduce electricity. In this work, the thermodynamic performance of this type of bioenergy system is evaluated through exergy analysis. A base-case process combining biomass gasification, FT synthesis and a combined cycle is defined. Furthermore, two alternative configurations modifying the base-case process are considered: (i) autothermal reforming (ATR) of a fraction of the FT tail gas to increase the fuel yield, and (ii) combustion of a fraction of the conditioned biosyngas to increase electricity production. The biomass conversion plants are simulated using Aspen Plus® to obtain the data required for the assessment. The indirect gasifier and the gas combustor are identified as the main sources of irreversibility within the three process configurations, with exergy destruction ratios of 21% and 5–7%, respectively. The gasification subsystem is found to contribute over 50% to the overall exergy destruction, showing 68% efficiency. The power generation subsystem also shows a high contribution to the overall exergy destruction (19–28%) due to high fuel consumption and the significant thermodynamic irreversibility of the cycle. Depending on the plant configuration, overall exergetic efficiencies of 24–27% are attained. The ATR case leads to a higher yield of biofuels, at the expense of lower electricity production. This configuration enhances the exergetic efficiency of the system and thus its thermodynamic performance, in contrast to the alternative configuration for increased power generation.

The impact of energy, agriculture, macroeconomic and human-induced indicators on environmental pollution: evidence from Ghana.

In this study, the impact of energy, agriculture, macroeconomic and human-induced indicators on environmental pollution from 1971 to 2011 is investigated using the statistically inspired modification of partial least squares (SIMPLS) regression model. There was evidence of a linear relationship between energy, agriculture, macroeconomic and human-induced indicators and carbon dioxide emissions. Evidence from the SIMPLS regression shows that a 1% increase in crop production index will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 0.71%. Economic growth increased by 1% will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 0.46%, which means that an increase in Ghana's economic growth may lead to a reduction in environmental pollution. The increase in electricity production from hydroelectric sources by 1% will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 0.30%; thus, increasing renewable energy sources in Ghana's energy portfolio will help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. Increasing enteric emissions by 1% will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 4.22%, and a 1% increase in the nitrogen content of manure management will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 6.69%. The SIMPLS regression forecasting exhibited a 5% MAPE from the prediction of carbon dioxide emissions.

Analiza potencjału wykorzystania biomasy odpadowej w województwie wielkopolskim do zastosowań przemysłowych

In recent years, the introduction of modern solutions to energy sector beyond energy efficiency places special emphasis on environmental issues. They concern efforts to achieve the lowest possible carbon dioxide emissions and toxic substances into the atmosphere. Oneof the main methods to reach this goal is using biomass as fuel. Because of its life cycle, biomass is considered as neutral to the atmosphere from the point of view of carbon dioxide emissions. Another advantage is the high availability, especially in agricultural, industrial and forestry areas as well as sludge from waste water treatment. Currently, there are many technologies that use biomass for the production of electrical energy such as cocombustion, biogas and gasification plants. This article provides a detailed analysis of the potential acquisition of biomass in the Wielkopolska region (western Poland) which indicates the possibility of a significant increase in electricity production from this source. Keywords: biomass, energy potential of biomass, wood

THE IMPACT OF GEOTHERMAL ENERGY SECTOR DEVELOPMENT ON ELECTRICITY SECTOR IN INDONESIA ECONOMY

Energy is one of the most important inputs that supports Indonesia’s economy. The government utilises coal and oil as the main sources for power plants energy mix. However, the utilization of fossil fuel energy has been proven to pose negative impacts on the environment such as, increasing carbon dioxide emission which leads to global warming. This study analyses investment policy on increasing electricity production of geothermal power plants as well as substitution of fossil energy to geothermal energy using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model and Indonesia’s data of Social Accounting Matrix 2008. The result shows that when investment on the substitution of energy from fossil to renewable energy takes place, economic growth will increase and carbon dioxide emission will reduce significantly.

Economic, welfare and environmental impact of feed-in tariff policy: A case study in Iran

Following a particular attention given to environmental issues over the last few decades, establishing proper developmental policies to increase electricity production from renewable energy (RE) has not only been an important issue but also a challenge for many countries. Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Policy is one of the tools that is being used to facilitate the development of RE. This research evaluated the economic, welfare and environmental impact of this policy on Iran's economy. Therefore, after developing an Economic-Energy-Environmental (E3) type of Hybrid General Equilibrium model, the effect of FIT policy was examined under different scenarios in order to find an optimal condition in which 10% of electrical energy could be produced from renewable resources. The comparison between the results showed that the application of subsidies to RE and the way the government finances these subsidies can affect the results of FIT policy. Meanwhile, regardless of the role considered for the impact of environmental factors, our policies under the scenario of technology neutral is the most efficient, as it has less impact on the decline of GDP of different sectors and also has less financial cost for government.

Technical and economic analyses of waste heat energy recovery from internal combustion engines by the Organic Rankine Cycle

Due to its low complexity, the Organic Rankine Cycle can be considered as one of the best options for waste heat recovery at low (at most 230°C) and average (230–650°C) temperatures. A technical and economic study has been conducted in this work in order to increase the efficiency of electricity production, and thus reduce fuel consumption and polluting gas emission from Internal Combustion Engines. For such a purpose, two Organic Rankine Cycle sets were suggested. The first one is facing deployment in water shortage areas (Organic Rankine Cycle using a cooling tower for the condensing system) and another one with the water supply condenser being made by the urban water net. Both simulated systems were able to increase electricity production by almost 20% when toluene was the working fluid. The economic analysis was based on the Engineering Chemical Cost Plant Index model which showed that the financial return from the implementation of the Organic Rankine Cycle system can occur in six years. Thus, it is noted that the Organic Rankine Cycle system can be installed in areas where there is no water abundance and without much yield loss. Despite being an appropriate technological solution to recover the waste heat present in Internal Combustion Engines exhaust gas, it still lacks in governmental incentives for a wide application of the system.

(Invited) Reverse Electrodialysis for Unique Devices

Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is emerging as one of the promising process for generating electrical power from renewable energy sources. Production of electrical power was demonstrated by mixing the fresh and salt water which are inexhaustible resources at the mouth of river for the first time in early 1950s. This idea had not been receiving keen attention, however, before we seriously faced the depletion crisis of natural power resources. Recently, a couple of European countries, including Netherland, Sweden, and Italy, have been interested in the study and development of salinity gradient power-based electricity production systems. For instance, Wetsus center in Netherland built up experimentally and theoretically optimized RED systems to obtain maximum electrical power for sustainable water technology with given materials and mechanical engineering resources. They are developing the pilot RED plant capable of 200 MW electricity production and ultimately planning to supply local public/private housing. Meanwhile, some scientists paid attention to unique applications based on eco-friendly RED systems. As an application, Logan group at Pennsylvania State University showed significantly increased electricity production with simultaneous purification of waste water using the hybrid system of RED and microbial cell. They also reported the hydrogen production strategy by generating electricity in the same combinations. In this talk, a few unique applications based on RED system as a new electrical power source are introduced and discussed.

The impacts of wind technology advancement on future global energy

To avoid additional global warming and environmental damage, energy systems need to rely on the use of low carbon technologies like wind energy. However, supply uncertainties, production costs, and energy security are the main factors considered by the global economies when reshaping their energy systems. Here, we explore the potential roles of wind energy technology advancement in future global electricity generations, costs, and energy security. We use an integrated assessment model performing a series of technology advancement scenarios. The results show that double of the capital cost reduction causes 40% of generation increase and 10% of cost ​decrease on average in the long-term global wind electricity market. Today’s technology advancement could bring us the benefit of increasing electricity production in the future 40–50years, and decreasing electricity cost in the future 90–100years. The technology advancement of wind energy can help to keep global energy security and stability. An aggressive development and deployment of wind energy could in the long-term avoid 1/3 of gas and 1/28 of coal burned, and keep 1/2 biomass and 1/20 nuclear fuel saved from the global electricity system. The key is that wind resources are free and carbon-free. The results of this study are useful in broad coverage ranges from innovative technologies and systems of renewable energy to the economic industrial and domestic use of energy with no or minor impact on the environment.