Innovation in Energy Systems - New Technologies for Changing Paradigms

Learning by doing is essential in engineering education, along with topics such as systems automation and control and energy efficiency. This article presents work including all of these different topics. A micro‐cogeneration facility located at the University of Vigo is studied. The experimental plant is automated after detecting the most important variables and actuations. A system responsible for the control, supervision, and monitoring of the system was developed using the programming software LabVIEW. All of these processes are explained in depth here. Finally, a complete practice experience is proposed for the next course of the Master of Thermal Engineering programme taught at the University of Vigo. Different tasks are included: the study of the operating principle of a micro‐cogeneration system, the analysis of measurement devices and actuators for the automation of an experimental facility, LabVIEW programming, and interaction with the integrated system. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology will be evaluated through a five‐point Likert‐type scale survey. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:723–735, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21744

Design and monitoring of a micro-cogeneration system: A wide practice proposed for engineering education

This digest reviews extensively on preliminary analysis to obtain a 30 kW electric power generator and to apply Bio-methane to use it directly to micro gas turbine for electricity generation.

An innovative off-grid permanent magnet flux switching generator for micro gas turbine in rural areas

This study developed a grid-connected biogas power generation system for a rural community using a 3-phase 2.2 kW squirrel-cage induction machine as the self-excited induction generator. The generator was driven by a 196 cc single-cylinder spark-ignition engine fueled by biogas. We developed a back-to-back converter that consists of a 3-phase PWM rectifier as the generator-side converter and a single-phase LCL-filtered grid-connected inverter. The generator-side converter transferred the active power to the grid-side converter and supplied the reactive power control back to the generator. The notch filter-based bus voltage control on the generator side mitigated the inter-harmonics in the generator current. The injected grid current complied with the IEEE 1547 standard because of the multi-frequency unbalanced synchronous reference frame control. The proposed system was validated with biogas produced from pig manure at a pig farm in central Thailand, which found a maximum output of 1.2 kW with a thermal system efficiency of 10.7%. The proposed system was scheduled to operate at 1.2 kW for 8 h per day with a levelized cost of 0.07 US$/kWh, 42% cheaper than the retail electricity price, and a payback period of 2.76 years. The proposed system is suitable for a farm with a minimum of 34 pigs.

/pdf/grid-integration-of-livestock-biogas-using-self-excited-1a5d44lc.pdf

Grid Integration of Livestock Biogas Using Self-Excited Induction Generator and Spark-Ignition Engine

The use of renewable energy sources has experienced great development so as to meet energy demand. With the intention of increasing the utilization of the renewable energy sources near the demand side and compensate the fluctuation of the output power, the use of micro-cogeneration systems with solar (PV) and wind energy overcomes both technical and economic barriers. Micro-cogeneration-based hybrid PV/wind energy system can get stable power output. This new energy model also improves the power quality and significantly reduces the impact of power instability on the power network. In this study, the grid-connected hybrid PV/wind energy-based micro-cogeneration system is modeled and analyzed in detail. In order to test the performance analysis of the system, seven different scenarios are analyzed during the case studies. The analysis results show that the new energy model presents effective solutions to electrical power balance because of its properties such as safety, incombustible structure, and being eco-friendly. It is aimed at providing a broad perspective on the status of optimum design and analysis for the micro-cogeneration-based hybrid PV/wind energy system to the researchers and the application engineers dealing with these issues.

/pdf/use-of-micro-cogeneration-in-microgrids-to-support-3l8b5uhfow.pdf

Use of Micro-Cogeneration in Microgrids to Support Renewables

The paper deals with a microcogenerator prototype of 10 kW of electric power and about 20 kW of thermal power, suitable for indipendent local grids (such as small farms or small residential sites) fuelled by gas produced from biomass (both gasifiers or biogas plants). Small power systems (i.e. about 10 kW of electric power) are not optimized to be fed by low heat value gaseous fuels produced by gasifier or biomass plants or blends of them. Most of them have been provided with induction generators and conceived to be grid connected, while in most cases these plants must represent a form of indipendent energy production system, so not making easily possible their running in remote locations. The protoype presented in the paper was conceived since the beginning in the simplest way: the internal combustion engine maintains many technical solutions and constructive elements adopted for a previous prototype derived from a Diesel automotive engine, then converted in a spark ignition unit. The same has been modified in order to be multi-fuelled and compliant with different blends of methane, LPG, and other mixtures of combustible gasses deriving from biomass conversion. This last aspect asked for deep modification of the unit itself, if compared to previous prototypes, but gave a clear flexibility in terms of different fuels. The electric generator is a permanent magnet generator fed by a simple inverter which is a good solution for islanded systems.

An innovative 10 kW microcogenerator suitable for off grid application and fed with syngas or biogas

The paper discusses the project, design and overall performance of a high efficiency microcogenerator prototype of 20 kW of electric power and about 40 kW of thermal power, suitable for small industrial or residential grid-connected applications, fuelled by natural gas or LPG. This unit has been conceived specifically as a local integrated energy platform having in durability, high global efficiency and cost reduction the most important goals to be achieved. Nowadays there are several plants with medium power microcogeneration systems (i.e. around 20 kWe) available on the market, most of them motored by internal combustion engines, which can show very high electric performances (between 30% and 35% of efficiency) and a P.E.R. (Primary Energy Ratio, i.e. the energy utilization rate of fuel) between 85% and 95%. However these systems result still expensive and bulky, making the investment unsuitable in most cases. In order to solve the above evidenced problems the plant prototype presented in the paper was conceived since the beginning as a low cost system, as it is based on a wide spread Diesel light trucks engine which has been converted into a spark ignition unit by Istituto Motori CNR of Italy in a very inexpensive way. At the same time the generation system was chosen to reduce the global cost, so that a common low cost air cooled induction motor has been selected among many other units. A new design regarding containing case has been adopted, in order to perfectly isolate the internal combustion engine and other hot elements, leaving on the external side just the air cooled generator. Always with the aim of reducing manufacturing cost, the whole plant was put up just adopting reliable and cost effective commercial components. In the paper are reported the most significant results regarding global efficiency and emissions when fed with natural gas, showing that this kind of plants could be considered an immediate solution for a very high efficiency electric and thermal production together with an important reduction of plant cost.

Prototype of a 20 kW cogenerator with reduced global cost

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Alfonso Daliento

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

An innovative 10 kW microcogenerator suitable for off grid application and fed with syngas or biogas

Prototype of a 20 kW cogenerator with reduced global cost