Plant Concept Research Articles

Data science and machine learning in the IIoT concepts of power plants

Smart power plants are no longer just futuristic ideas but are rapidly becoming a reality, and for this to be achievable, an application of artificial intelligence in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) concepts is necessary. This paper presents the place and role of Data Science (DS) and Machine Learning (ML) on edge, fog, and cloud levels of vertical IIoT concepts of power plants. A comprehensive functional analysis of edge, fog, and cloud levels has been done. Data analyzing, preprocessing, and processing are described on all levels separately. Limitations in signal conversion and data preprocessing at the edge level (edge computing), data processing and analysis at the fog level (fog computing), and information processing at the application and cloud levels (high-end and cloud computing) are described in detail. ML algorithms have been selected based on the particular management and control level. The proposed concepts represent management and maintenance improvements with minimal investment and avoidance of production downtime.

Optimality principles explaining divergent responses of alpine vegetation to environmental change.

Recent increases in vegetation greenness over much of the world reflect increasing CO2 globally and warming in cold areas. However, the strength of the response to both CO2 and warming in those areas appears to be declining for unclear reasons, contributing to large uncertainties in predicting how vegetation will respond to future global changes. Here, we investigated the changes of satellite-observed peak season absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (Fmax ) on the Tibetan Plateau between 1982 and 2016. Although climate trends are similar across the Plateau, we identified robust divergent responses (a greening of 0.31 ± 0.14% year-1 in drier regions and a browning of 0.12 ± 0.08% year-1 in wetter regions). Using an eco-evolutionary optimality (EEO) concept of plant acclimation/adaptation, we propose a parsimonious modelling framework that quantitatively explains these changes in terms of water and energy limitations. Our model captured the variations in Fmax with a correlation coefficient (r) of .76 and a root mean squared error of .12 and predicted the divergent trends of greening (0.32 ± 0.19% year-1 ) and browning (0.07 ± 0.06% year-1 ). We also predicted the observed reduced sensitivities of Fmax to precipitation and temperature. The model allows us to explain these changes: Enhanced growing season cumulative radiation has opposite effects on water use and energy uptake. Increased precipitation has an overwhelmingly positive effect in drier regions, whereas warming reduces Fmax in wetter regions by increasing the cost of building and maintaining leaf area. Rising CO2 stimulates vegetation growth by enhancing water-use efficiency, but its effect on photosynthesis saturates. The large decrease in the sensitivity of vegetation to climate reflects a shift from water to energy limitation. Our study demonstrates the potential of EEO approaches to reveal the mechanisms underlying recent trends in vegetation greenness and provides further insight into the response of alpine ecosystems to ongoing climate change.

Belite cement clinker from autoclaved aerated concrete waste – A contribution towards CO2‐reduced circular building materials

AbstractThe processing of belite cement clinker in a rotary kiln at about 1000oC is a new recycling option for autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) waste that otherwise must be landfilled. The clinker produced can partially substitute ordinary portland cement (OPC) in AAC production. Waste quantities and landfill costs are minimized, while at the same time CO2 emissions and the primary resource consumption of AAC production are reduced. The technology is currently under development. New analytical possibilities and modeling have made it possible to optimize the process conditions to such an extent that the use of belite cement clinker in aerated concrete production has already been technically tested. Particularly large effects on CO2 emissions can be achieved through the electrical heating of the rotary kiln and the coupled sequestration of the released CO2 in other secondary products such as recycled aggregate for concrete production from waste concrete. Comparable concepts for the AAC cycle are currently being worked on together with the industry partner Xella. Although decentralized plant concepts would be useful in order to minimize transportation, small plants are currently not economical according to initial estimates. In the long term, emission‐free product cycles are aimed at.

Assessment of Staff of Federal College of Forestry, Jos, Plateau State on the Knowledge of Terms and Concepts used in Plant Nursery

This study is aimed at assessing the knowledge of staff of Federal College of Forestry, Jos towards plant nursery terms and concepts (Horticultural terms and services). The research design is descriptive and utilized structured questionnaires and observation techniques to obtain primary data from respondents. A total of 165 questionnaires were distributed and 140 were retrieved representing 84.84% used for final analysis. The retrieved questionnaires were analysed and presented using descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square, and Mann-Whitney tests. The results indicated that respondents often visit the plant nursery for different purposes and are aware of the plant nursery terms and concepts. The study revealed that age, gender, education level and discipline of respondents have no significant influence on the level of awareness of plant nursery terms and concepts. Based on the findings of this survey, it is recommended that conducting more focused employee awareness and presentation programs, especially on newly introduced plant terminology and concepts, will help enhance staff knowledge.

Training of The Utilization of Medicinal Plants as Complementary Medicine Among Health Workers

The current community service focused on the use medicinal plants which seemed to increase among families. This program was supported by the 2018 Riskesdas report, which showed that 38.7% of Indonesia’s population had used traditional medicine for treatments. This program sought to discover health workers’ knowledge of family medicinal plant training. This community service was carried out through the mentoring method and involved 25 public health center employees representing each primary healthcare in Ogan Ilir Regency. We selected the sample using the total sampling method. The mentoring session was organized in the form of training related to the concepts of family medicinal plants and how to use them. This training involved a number of lectures and presentations of a model of family medicinal plants. The differences in knowledge of the training participants were measured using a pretest and posttest. The data were analyzed using the t-test. The results showed a difference in health workers’ knowledge before and after the training (p <0.05). There is an increase in the knowledge of primary healthcare workers regarding family medicinal plants.

Economic assessment of multi-operator virtual power plants in electricity market: A game theory-based approach

In recent years, the penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) has increased significantly due to their tremendous effect on network flexibility, economic indicators, and power loss. On the contrary, a diverse assortment of DERs can lead to some challenges in controlling these resources in the power grid. To acquire the maximum benefit of DERs and overcome their challenges the concept of virtual power plants (VPPs) has been suggested. Due to the ability of VPPs to participate in electricity markets and the competition of VPPs to gain more profit we are facing deregulated multi-operator markets, and it is necessary to define VPPs as price maker units. The optimal economic assessment of VPPs in a multi-operator market depends on two folds: modeling inner cooperation between its components and managing external competition with other VPPs. To this end, in this paper, a new framework for optimal economic assessment of a multi-operator VPP system is proposed by considering a combination of non-cooperative and cooperative game theory-based approaches. In the proposed methodology, VPPs compete with other rivals to determine the amount of power exchange and offer prices based on supply function equilibrium. Due to incomplete information of VPPs about other opponents and market construction, a combination of particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm is proposed to find the Nash equilibrium point. Also, the Shapely value concept is used for fair distribution of shared profit among VPPs components. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified in two case studies for a multi-operator VPP with a diverse assortment of DERs. The results show that VPP profit and electricity market prices directly relate to the diversity of resources in VPP. In this regard, the mark-up coefficient of the VPP with a greater number of DERs is about 16% and 32% larger than the two other VPPs which leads to more profit for this VPP and resources in its coalition.

An Auction-Based Local Market Clearing for Energy Management in a Virtual Power Plant

Virtual power plant (VPP) concept creates additional benefits for different stakeholders, such as system operators, distributed energy resources’ owners, and aggregators. This article presents an auction-based energy management solution from VPP aggregator point of view. To this end, a network-constrained economic dispatch has been developed taking into account a comprehensive resource portfolio, including the conventional and renewable distributed generations, energy storage units, and flexible loads. The VPP aggregator aims at minimizing its expected costs through optimal dispatch of its own resources as well as purchasing and selling electricity from/to upstream network. To this end, a stochastic programming approach has been employed to consider the generation uncertainty of renewable energy resources as well as day-ahead energy market prices using a set of plausible scenarios. The payments to the prosumers are according to an auction-based pricing method that could be an efficient strategy for the VPP aggregator in order to guarantee fairness among consumers and producers within the VPP. In the auction-based pricing scheme, the electricity price at each local node can be calculated according to the demand and generation in each time slot. The proposed framework is a mixed-integer linear programming problem and solved by the CPLEX solver in the GAMS software. It is noteworthy that the effectiveness of the model has been verified, considering several numerical studies.

The Heat-Storing Micro Gas Turbine—Process Analysis and Experimental Investigation of Effects on Combustion

Renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and photovoltaics are the key to an environmentally friendly energy supply. However, their volatile power output is challenging in regard to supply security. Therefore, flexible energy systems with storage capabilities are crucial for the expansion of renewable energy sources since they allow storing off-demand produced power and reconverting and supplying it on-demand. For this purpose, a novel power plant concept is presented where high-temperature energy storage (HTES) is integrated between the recuperator and the combustor of a conventional micro gas turbine (MGT). It is used to store renewable energy in times of oversupply, which is later used to reduce fuel demand during MGT operation. Hereby, pollutant emissions are reduced significantly, while the power grid is stabilized. This paper presents a numerical process simulation study, aiming to examine the influence of different storage temperatures and load profiles of HTES on the MGT performance (e.g., fuel consumption, efficiency). Furthermore, relevant operating points and their process parameters such as pressures, temperatures, and mass-flow rates are derived. As operation conditions for the combustor are strongly influenced by the HTES, the paper contains a detailed theoretical analysis of the impact on combustor operability and includes an experimental investigation of the first combustor design adapted for the compound and tested under higher inlet temperatures conditions.

Sustainable production of lignocellulosic bioethanol towards zero waste biorefinery

This study proposes a novel process design for lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol conversion with zero waste generation. In comparison to traditional bioethanol process, the proposed new process not only produces ethanol, but also converts waste streams into high value-added by-products by undergoing multi-stage refinery steps. The feasibility the proposed process design, especially the additional waste processing, has been carried out. The results showed that co-producing by-products could significantly contribute to the profitability by decreasing the ethanol minimum viable sales price from $2.24/gal to $1.78/gal, comparing with traditionally produced bioethanol. It was also found that ethanol minimum sale price is highly sensitive to the lignin price fluctuation. The water pollution can be avoided in the proposed process due to an additional water recycling step, however, there is a trade-off between reduced water pollution and increased CO2 emissions when fossil fuel is used as operation energy. The results showed that, to ensure proposed bioethanol plant have environmental advantage with traditional ethanol refinery plant, the CO2 emission per kWh for all kinds of electricity should not be over 0.11 kg/kWh. Thus, we suggest that the proposed concept of zero-waste bioethanol plants could be established in Countries with access of sufficient renewable electricity supply.

2D model of the transfer processes for CO2 methanation in a microchannel reactor

A dynamic two-dimensional model was developed for transfer processes in a microchannel reactor in an innovative plant concept for CO2 methanation. The model is based on balance equations together with deactivation and sulfidation submodels taking into account the chemisorption of impurity (H2S). The deactivation of the catalyst is described by Levenspiel’s deactivation kinetic model (LDKM). Sulfidation is defined by the shrinking core model (SCM) equation. Following the rate-determining step assumption, a simplified mechanism is derived for CO2 and CO methanation in a microchannel reactor with kinetic rate expressions. The developed 2D model adequately describes transient and steady-state behavior of the microchannel methanation reactor following the trend in experimental profiles available in the literature.

Early Greek Philosophy on the Question of Life: Plants’ Physiology and Life from the Presocratics to Aristotle

Aristotle excluded plants from kinship with animals, but included them in the great chain of life. Provided with bare living functions, plants began to constitute a different and separated kind, holding a position that through Theophrastus would be appropriated by Linnaeus and would define modern botany and more. The aim of this essay is twofold: to discuss the conception of plants’ physiology and life in ancient philosophical doctrines while accounting for Aristotle’s exclusion. Rather than following a chronological line, I will start with Aristotle on the belief that he responded to the doctrines of the Presocratics. He assigned to plants a φύσις (nature) of their own, incompatible with that of animals, and thus broke the continuity among forms of life that held together the living world for the early Greek philosophers, students of nature (φυσιόλογοι). Prior to Aristotle, I will argue, plants were seen as full-fledged living beings (ζῷα) sharing many characteristics with animals, including a similar physiology and capacities.

Deep learning-based scheduling of virtual energy hubs with plug-in hybrid compressed natural gas-electric vehicles

The virtual energy hub (VEH), a combination of virtual power plant and energy hub concepts, faces many uncertainties due to its constituent distributed energy resources. This paper presents the deep learning-based scheduling of VEH for participation in electrical and thermal markets using bidirectional long short-term memory (BLSTM) network, which offers excellent accuracy in forecasting uncertain parameters by concurrent using past and future dependencies. In addition to applying learning methods, energy storage systems can also influence the optimal management of uncertainties. To provide the required electrical storage equipment, the VEH employs plug-in hybrid CNG-electric vehicles (PHGEVs) that can use both electrical energy and compressed natural gas (CNG) to fulfill their energy needs. The alternative fuel can tackle the limitations of prolonged charging of electric vehicles and excess load caused by these vehicles at peak hours. To supply the secondary fuel of PHGEVs, the modeled VEH includes a CNG station, which compresses the natural gas imported from the natural gas grid before delivering it to the vehicles. Furthermore, phase change material-based thermal energy storage (PCMTES) is considered in the VEH configuration, which unlike other common thermal energy storage systems, operates at a constant temperature during the charging and discharging period. Lastly, the simulation of the developed system illustrates that PHGEVs can reduce the imposed cost in unforeseen situations by up to 26 percent and increase the system’s flexibility.

Refined Agriculture Model for Rural Development

In the context of the development and progress of agricultural science and technology in China, exquisite agriculture came into being. Its goal is to produce high quality, high value-added agricultural products, adopt characteristic product-oriented, standardized production mode, industrialized operation, adhere to the original natural farming concept of planting, and create exquisite characteristic vegetable land with all-ecological planting. By analyzing the resource endowment of She County, Huangshan City, Anhui Province, this paper argues the necessity of developing exquisite agriculture in She County, followed by summarizing the current situation of exquisite agriculture development in She County, analyzing the problems in development and putting forward relative suggestions, so as to provide ideas for realizing rural revitalization.

Climate-Resilient Microbial Biotechnology: A Perspective on Sustainable Agriculture

We designed this review to describe a compilation of studies to enlighten the concepts of plant–microbe interactions, adopted protocols in smart crop farming, and biodiversity to reaffirm sustainable agriculture. The ever-increasing use of agrochemicals to boost crop production has created health hazards to humans and the environment. Microbes can bring up the hidden strength of plants, augmenting disease resistance and yield, hereafter, crops could be grown without chemicals by harnessing microbes that live in/on plants and soil. This review summarizes an understanding of the functions and importance of indigenous microbial communities; host–microbial and microbial–microbial interactions; simplified experimentally controlled synthetic flora used to perform targeted operations; maintaining the molecular mechanisms; and microbial agent application technology. It also analyzes existing problems and forecasts prospects. The real advancement of microbiome engineering requires a large number of cycles to obtain the necessary ecological principles, precise manipulation of the microbiome, and predictable results. To advance this approach, interdisciplinary collaboration in the areas of experimentation, computation, automation, and applications is required. The road to microbiome engineering seems to be long; however, research and biotechnology provide a promising approach for proceeding with microbial engineering and address persistent social and environmental issues.

Process Analysis and Design Considerations of a Low Carbon Methanol Synthesis Plant from Lignite/Waste Gasification

This study presents design considerations and an evaluation of a full-scale process chain for methanol and advanced drop-in fuel production derived from lignite/solid recovered fuel (SRF) feedstock. The plant concept consists of a high-temperature Winkler (HTW) gasifier coupled with an air separation unit (ASU), which provides a high-purity (99.55%) gasification oxidant agent. The concept includes the commercially proven acid gas removal (AGR) system based on cold methanol (e.g., Rectisol® process) for the removal of BTX and naphthalene components. With the involvement of Rectisol®, an almost pure CO2 off-gas stream is generated that can be further stored or utilized (CCS/CCU), and a smaller CO2 stream containing H2S is recovered and subsequently driven to the sulfur recovery unit (e.g., Claus process). One of the potential uses of methanol is considered, and a methanol upgrading unit is implemented. The overall integrated process model was developed in the commercial software Aspen PlusTM. Simulations for different feedstock ratios were investigated, ensuring the concept’s adaptability in each case without major changes. A number of parametric studies were performed concerning (a) the oxygen purity and (b) the reformer type, and a comparison against alternative methanol production routes was conducted. Simulations show that the proposed system is able to retain the cold gas efficiency (CGE) in the range of 79–81.1% and the energetic fuel efficiency (EFE) at around 51%. An efficient conversion of approximately 99.5% of the carbon that enters the gasifiers is accomplished, with around 45% of carbon being captured in the form of pure CO2. Finally, the metrics of EFE and total C for the conversion of methanol to liquid fuels were 40.7% and 32%, respectively, revealing that the proposed pathway is an effective alternative for methanol valorization.

Scenario-based robust energy management of CCHP-based virtual energy hub for participating in multiple energy and reserve markets

The multi-energy systems can operate and schedule the distributed energy resources (DERs) locally to supply the multi-type loads and participate in the energy markets by aggregating the output power of DERs. Recently, the virtual energy hub (VEH) concept, derived from the energy hub and virtual power plant concepts, has been proposed for participating in the electrical and thermal markets. In this paper, robust self-scheduling of a VEH for participating in the energy and reserve markets is presented. The thermal reserve market is proposed to maintain the real-time thermal power balance and compensate for the effects of thermal demand uncertainty. Various types of DERs for supplying loads of each energy carrier are considered. Compressed natural gas (CNG) station is discussed and modeled linearly in the developed VEH to provide the fuel needed by Hybrid CNG and plug-in electric vehicles, which used the CNG as their secondary energy resource. A scenario-based robust approach is developed and presented to maximize the VEH profit and control the downside risk without adding surplus constraints. Finally, the proposed model is simulated in three case studies to evaluate its performance and effectiveness. • Self-scheduling of virtual energy hub for participating in the bilateral markets. • Thermal and electrical reserve markets. • Hybrid CNG and Plug-in electric vehicles. • CNG station for supplying needed CNG fuel. • Downside risk control via developed scenario-based robust method.

Benchmarking solid oxide electrolysis cell-stacks for industrial Power-to-Methane systems via hierarchical multi-scale modelling

Power-to-Gas (PtG) is prognosticated to realize large capacity increases and create substantial revenues within the next decade. Due to their inherently high efficiencies, solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) have the potential to become one of the core technologies in PtG applications. While thermal integration of the high-temperature SOEC module with downstream exothermic methanation is a very potent concept, the performance of SOECs needs to be boosted to amplify the technologies impact for future large-scale plants. Here, we use a combined experimental and modelling approach to benchmark commercial electrolyte- (ESC) and cathode-supported cell (CSC) designs on industrial-scale planar SOEC stack performance. In a first step, comprehensive electrochemical and microstructural analyses are carried out to parametrize, calibrate and validate a detailed multi-physics 2D cell model, which is then used to study the cells’ behaviour in detail. The analysis reveals that there exists a cell-specific threshold steam conversion of ∼80% for the ESC and ∼75% for the CSC design, which represents a maximum of the total (heat plus electrical) electrolysis efficiency. Moreover, while the ESC-design suffers from performance reductions under pressurized conditions, considerable performance increases of ∼9% at 20 atm (700 °C, 1.35 V) compared to atmospheric pressure are predicted for the CSC design, showcasing a unique advantage of the CSC cell for process integration with the catalytic methanation. Subsequently, based on a 3D stack model, a scale-up to the industrial stack size is conducted. To comparatively assess stack performances under application-oriented conditions, optimization studies are carried out for 150-cell stack units based on the two cell designs individually. When optimally selecting the stack operation points, the model predicts the CSC-based stack to reach a high capacity up to 36.6 kW (∼10.6 Nm3 H2 h−1) at 1.35 V and 700 °C, whilst ensuring reasonably low temperature gradients (<10 K cm−1) and sweep gas cooling requirements (<30 sccmcm−2). Thus, CSC-design stacks incorporating such a highly active cell design can be expected to further boost the competitiveness of high-temperature electrolysis in PtG plant concepts.

PERANCANGAN TURBIN ANGIN SAVONIUS UNTUK SISTEM PENERANGAN DENGAN STRIP LED PADA JEMBATAN

Today the availability of energy sources in the future is a global problem that continues to be the concern of all countries in the world. Electrical energy is one of the most basic needs in a country, especially in Indonesia. In addition to the problem of the need for electrical energy, lighting in the bridge area is also still a polemic to this day. Based on the studies that have been carried out, it is necessary to maximize the utilization of renewable energy sources, one of which is wind energy as a supplier of electrical energy by applying the concept of a wind power plant (PLTB). Based on the problems that have been described, a creative and innovative idea was initiated to help lighting on bridges in an effort to reduce the number of traffic accidents with the design title Savonius wind turbines for lighting systems with LED strips on bridges.

Study of Effect Changing the Blade Shape and Lift Angles on Horizontal Wind Turbine

The lack of energy commodities such as coal and petroleum makes the cost of these commodities soar. This event shows how much countries in the world are still very dependent on fossil fuels, and it is fitting that the transition to new renewable energy can be realized soon, low emission and environmentally friendly energy is the hope in the future. Indonesia has a supply of renewable energy sources that are abundant is a great force for this clean energy revolution. The momentum of the presence of the first wind farm in Indonesia operating in Mattirotasi Village, Sidrap Regency, Central Sulawesi in Indonesia with a wind power plant capacity (PLTB) of 75 MW is positive evidence that the government is starting to pay more attention to the development of renewable energy technology in Indonesia. Turbine technology that is able to optimize wind speed in Indonesia must be the answer so that this energy is more useful. In this study, the idea for an experimental analysis of "Study of the Effect of Blade Shape Change and Lift Angle on Horizontal Wind Tubin using Nvis 6009 Experimentation with Solar and Wind Energy props. The Nvis 6009 is a prop used by vocational schools to understand the concept of a DC power plant based on solar and wind energy. To optimize low wind speed, on Nvis 6009 horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) with different type 3 Blade and changes in lift angle, so that we can know the effect of the resulting voltage change, so that we can know the effect of the resulting voltage change. Simple illustrations using the Solidworks application are done as validation of the results of previous research and to obtain preliminary data of research experiments. The final results of the test on Type Blade II obtained maximum data at a Blade angle of 13 ° with a wind speed of 3.9 m / s, Blade Rotation 2587 Rpm produces a voltage of 2.8 V.

Direct Participation of Dynamic Virtual Power Plants in Secondary Frequency Control

This paper proposes a novel control strategy in which Renewable Energy Sources (RES) considered in a new Dynamic Virtual Power Plant (DVPP) concept directly participate to Secondary Frequency Control (SFC). This allows full participation of these generators to SFC, i.e., in the same manner as classic synchronous generators by fulfilling identical specifications from both control and contractual points of view. An internal real-time redispatch has been proposed to account in DVPP in order to determine the amount of active power injection by each RES unit for the provision of frequency support at the secondary level. The whole control scheme is designed to take into account both rapid and slow dynamics of modern power systems which contain both classic synchronous generators and rapid power electronics for renewable energy sources in which DVPP is supposed to be inserted. The performance of secondary frequency control strategy has been validated through simulation studies on a two-area benchmark with mixed wind power plants and classic synchronous generators. This work is part of the H2020 POSYTYF project