<p>Experimental research on innovative energy systems needs a considerable investment in terms of capital cost, operation, maintenance, and replacement of damaged components. This aspect is particularly critical for the development of hybrid systems based on the integration of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and turbomachinery. To tackle such an issue the Thermochemical Power Group (TPG) of the University of Genoa, Italy, has been developing emulator plants based on a cyber-physical approach. Such plants include some real components (e.g. turbomachinery, heat exchangers, heat pump, thermal energy storage), but emulate the most delicate and expensive (or too large) devices, such as the fuel cell and the reformer or steam cycle. The emulation is possible integrating the system with detailed dynamic models running in real-time mode and including in the experimental plant volumes and thermal capacities representative of the real system. Thanks to this methodology, the TPG performs many studies on SOFC – micro gas turbine (MGT) systems, analysing their behaviour in different operating conditions, as well as developing and testing various controllers, such as PIDs and model predictive control tools. More recently a SOFC-MGT emulator based on a T100 microturbine was used to test the control of the system under degradation and using biofuels, while another emulator plant is used to study an innovative biofueled SOFC-turbocharger layout. Furthermore, an emulator of an advanced highly flexible combined cycle, still based on an actual T100 microturbine, has been commissioned and tests are ongoing. &nbsp;This presentation will describe the approach adopted at TPG to emulate innovative energy systems and it will display the main results obtained. Moreover, it will provide an insight on the on-going TPG activities on cyber-physical systems, encompassing the emulation of large-scale gas turbine combined cycles and virtual-reality environments for operator training.</p>

Cyber-Physical Applications for Emulation of Energy Systems

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2021/volume/85109

ASME 2021 Power Conference (POWER2021)

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