Kari Alanne

Micro-Cogeneration I
Introduction Kari Alanne University Lecturer, D.Sc (Tech.)

Kari Alanne

Session outline
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Background What is micro-cogeneration? Micro-cogeneration technologies Domestic micro-cogeneration Micro-cogeneration system Operational strategies Energy excess, shortage and storage Future trends

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Background Key phrases of sustainable development

Scarcity of natural resources Efficiency in terms of the use of energy and raw materials Utilization of local resources Decentralization not all the eggs in the same basket Networking Flexibility and scalability

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Background Different energy supplies

In the past Furnace in every single house Wooden fuel from the surroundings No electrical devices no demand of electricity Now Large power plants District heating Increasing demand of electricity In the future (?) Every single house consumes and produces its own thermal and electrical energy Thermal demand minimized, strong dependency on electricity

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Definitions what is micro-cogeneration?

Also known as micro-CHP: Combined Heat and Power Simultaneous production of electricity and thermal energy in small units close to consumers A direct replacement for a boiler in a hydronic heating system, which simultaneously produces heat & electrical power

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Definitions technical
EU Directive on micro-cogeneration:
electrical power less than 50 kWe Mini-CHP: electrical power > 50 kW e

European Committee for Standardization (EN50438):

16 A per phase in three phase (25 A single phase)

Domestic scale micro-cogeneration (DCHP):

one unit per home practically: less than 5 kWe

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Micro-CHP technologies
Fuel cells Stirling engines Internal Combustion engines Microturbines

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Micro-CHP technologies fuel cells (FC)

Operational principle:
inverse electrolysis (details on separate slide) operational temperatures 60100C (Poly-Electrolyte Membrane, PEM), 6001000C (Solid-Oxide Fuel Cells, SOFC)

Fuel:
hydrogen, reformed natural gas

Efficiency:
electrical efficiency 40 % overall efficiency 65-75 % electrical power / heat flow ~ 1.0 (PEM)

Market status:
emerging technology

Estimated installed costs:

27004200 EUR/kW e (10100 kW e plants, full market)

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Fuel Cells operational principle

Source: Center for Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Research

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Micro-CHP technologies Stirling engines (SE)

Operational principle:
reciprocating engine, combustion outside the cylinder operational temperature 6080C

Fuel:
natural or biogas, gasoline, diesel, LPG, various liquid or solid fuels

Efficiency:
electrical efficiency 20-30 % overall efficiency 80-90 % electrical power / heat flow ~ 0.3

Market status:
emerging technology

Estimated installed costs:

11002500 EUR/kW e (510 kW e plants, full market)

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Stirling engines operational principle

2 cylinders (expansion and compression) containing the working gas combined with a passage a high temperature is maintained in the expansion cylinder (red) and the compression cylinder (blue) is cooled classified into i) alpha, ii) beta and iii) gamma types according to how the pistons are arranged

Alpha type Stirling engine

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Micro-CHP technologies internal combustion engines (ICE)

Operational principle:
conventional reciprocating engine, combustion inside the cylinder operational temperature 85100C

Fuel:
natural or biogas, diesel, gasoline

Efficiency:
electrical efficiency 25-30 % overall efficiency 75-85 % electrical power / heat flow ~ 0.5

Market status:
on the market

Installed costs:
8471020 EUR/kW e (5.5-30 kW e plants)

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Micro-CHP technologies microturbines (MT)

Operational principle:
conventional gas turbine process operational temperature 85100C

Fuel:
natural or biogas, diesel, gasoline, alcohols

Efficiency:
electrical efficiency 25-30 % overall efficiency 60-70 % electrical power / heat flow ~ 0.5

Market status:
on the market

Installed costs:
8001000 EUR/kW e (> 25 kW e plant)

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Images of micro-CHP products - I

Honda Ecowill ICE

Whispergen SE

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Images of micro-CHP products - II

Acumentrics AHEAD SOFC

Turbec T100 MT

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Domestic micro-CHP (DCHP) concept

EXHAUST 5-15% lighting appliances building services ELECTRICITY 15-25% ELECTRICITY IMPORT/EXPORT

micro CHP plant

Fuel 100%

space heating Heat 70% domestic hot water (DHW)

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Micro-CHP plant
Fuel Air

Auxiliary burner
Exhaust gas out Exhaust gas

Pre-handling of fuel and air Energy conversion module

Mechanical power or electricity (DC)

Electricity (AC) for ancillaries

Heat recovery
Water in

Power conditioning module

Electricity output (AC)

Water out

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Integration of micro-CHP plant into building services

Electricity to HVAC, lighting and appliances Buffer storage 6080C* Cold water Controller Circulating pump Hydronic radiators network or floor heating 4070/ 2040C Domestic hot water 55C

Electricity to grid CHP plant Exhaust >80C gases Fuel and air

* The storage temperature is controlled using heat sink and auxiliary burner, when needed.

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Operational strategies Aim:

to find optimal match between electrical and thermal demand and supply

Methods:
power control load management electrical and thermal storages

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Power control
1. Electrical load following mode, thermal excess is stored or dumped, thermal shortage generated by auxiliary burner and/or discharging the thermal storage 2. Thermal load following mode, electrical excess is stored or fed into the grid, electrical shortage satisfied by grid electricity or by discharging the storage 3. Operation at constant power (base load), the employment of thermal and electrical storages, heat sink, auxiliary burner and grid, when needed

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Temperature control of buffer storage

The purpose of the buffer storage:
Supply water temperature [C] 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 16 12 -12 -16 -20 -24 Outdoor temperature [C] -28 8 4 0 -4 -8

to deliver heat to the hydronic heating system to shave the peak thermal demands

Preset threshold values for storage temperatures determine the on/offoperation of the micro-CHP plant. The temperature of supply water to the radiator network is controlled by mixing supply and return water according to the outdoor temperature.

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Power control - challenges

Only on/off operation available the usual present day micro-cogeneration technologies Long start-up and shutdown periods may be required (Stirling engines) Substantial fuel demand at start-up phase Limited dP/dt (Solid-Oxide Fuel Cells) Low part-load efficiency
The above challenges are technology-specific. In general: steady demand close to specific power output is preferable in the sense of micro-cogeneration.

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Load management
A procedure to adjust electrical demands rather than the output of the plant Examples:
Forced switch-off of power-eaters such as sauna stoves and ovens Limited simultaneous use of electrical appliances

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Seasonal (long-term) thermal storages

Thermal surplus during warm season commonly occurs in the case of micro-CHP, when the plant can be operated close to constant power only and shutdowns are not preferred (e.g. SOFC plant) Significant thermal losses, poor annual efficiency Solution: seasonal thermal storage

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Thermal storage technologies

Mass storages Phase change materials (PCM) Thermo chemical energy storage

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Applicability of seasonal thermal storages

Operational environment:
climatic conditions, e.g. ground temperature, snowcovered ground geological structure of the building site

Inlet temperatures of the heating system:

40C (low temperature heating system) 70C (conventional radiator heating in Finland)

Trade-off between storage capacity and storage losses must be found!

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Integration of seasonal thermal storage into residential micro-CHP plant

Floor heating system (2530C) Buffer storage (4550C) CHP plant (>100C)

Heat pump

Heat exchanger

Seasonal heat storage (545C)

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About electrical storages for micro-CHP

Basic requirements:
large charge-discharge quantities must tolerate high discharge power minor service requirements safety longevity high energy density

Selected alternatives
Lead-acid- battery
good availability at low price (4-6 Wh/) low energy density 60-75 Wh/L

NiMH- battery
in the market, high price (1 Wh/) high energy density 140-300 Wh/L high self-discharge

LiFePO4- battery
emerging, high price (< 1Wh/) high energy density 170 Wh/L low service requirement

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Electricity to the grid?

Monetary compensation for the electricity fed into the grid may be based on:
Feed-in tariffs
the utilities are obliged to buy electricity from small producers at rates set by the government (buyback rate) a two-directional electricity metering required applied in many European countries

Net-metering
the deduction of energy outflows from metered energy inflows and compensated through a retail credit by a utility

Time-of use metering

Two-directional metering strategy that allows rate schedule depending on the peak demand hours

The stability of the grid limits the amount of grid-connected small-scale producers

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Energy saving houses challenge for the future

Thermal demand decreases significantly due to forthcoming low energy and passive construction standards. Electrical demand may decrease, remain the same or even increase in the future Electrical demand increases vis--vis thermal demand, whereas the electricity/heat ratio of microcogeneration plants (excluding fuel cells) is small. Zero energy / plus energy houses / autonomous houses aim at meeting the electrical demand by local generation.

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 Kari Alanne

Example: demand profiles

Standard house, Helsinki
10000 9000 8000 Electricity/heat [W]
Electricity/heat [W] 5000 6000

Passive house, Helsinki

7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

1 652 1303 1954 2605 3256 3907 4558 5209 5860 6511 7162 7813 8464

4000

3000 2000

1000

0
1 639 1277 1915 2553 3191 3829 4467 5105 5743 6381 7019 7657 8295

Time [h]
Electricity [W] Heat (standard house) [W]
Electricity [W]

Time [h]
Heat (standard house) [W]

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Trends of development Polygeneration

simultaneous production of electricity, heat and cooling energy (at various enthalpy levels), fuel synthesis (e.g. hydrogen)

Hybrid systems
micro-cogeneration +
solar and micro-wind heat pump energy storage

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 Kari Alanne

Micro-Cogeneration II
Research on micro-cogeneration at Aalto University Kari Alanne University Lecturer, D.Sc (Tech.)

Kari Alanne

Session outline
1. Baselines for the micro-CHP research at Aalto 2. Current research efforts
SOFC micro-cogeneration
economic assessment (break-even costs) seasonal thermal storages cost-optimized operation calibration and validation of SE simulation model performance assessment of SE-micro-cogeneration in single buildings and communitites

Combustion engines

3. Future research 4. Discussion

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General baselines
Computational study by IDA-ICE whole-building simulation program Target building: single-family house (131 m2, 4 occupants) located in Helsinki area Annual electricity consumption: 6100 kWh/a Annual thermal energy consumption: 11200 kWh/a Reference system: hydronic heating system with condensing gas boiler (=93 %)

IDA Simulation Environment

Simulation environment with different applications
IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (ICE) IDA Road Tunnel Ventilation (RTV) IDA Tunnel

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Developed at the Swedish Institute of applied mathematics and at KTH Owned by Equa Simulation, www.equa.se Features
Possibility to write user defined models Support of either NMF or Modelica models Adaptive time step Very flexible data input possibilities Easy data export (to Excel, Matlab, etc) Unique 3D visualization and animation of inputs and results for quality control and presentation capabilities A model version handling system for easy comparison between different runs Plenty of result presentation possibilities Location and climate downloads Internet and email support

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Economic premises for SOFC microcogeneration in Finnish households

Presented in Clima 2007 conference in Helsinki

Objective and methods

Objective:
To evaluate the financial viability of SOFC-based microcogeneration for residential applications in terms of

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break-even prices for plant investment and buyback prices of electricity sensitivity of break-even prices to electrical power, operational strategy and overall efficiency

Methods:
Computational study by IDA-Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE)

Estimation of hourly energy consumptions SOFC-blackbox model developed by VTT on the basis of the model specification by Beausoleil-Morrison et al. (2005) Estimation of SOFC operation Post-processing of simulation results
financial analysis

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Results
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What should the buyback price be to create annual savings when SOFC is compared with the reference system?
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Break-even buyback price (snt/kWh)

How much may an SOFC plant cost in order to be feasible within payback periods of 5-20 years?
Overall efficiency 80 %, 2 % escalation of electricity price

Payback price (EUR)

8 6 4 2 0 0,5

5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 5 7 9 Buyback price snt/kWh

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

Overall efficiency 1 kWe 2 kWe 3 kWe

5a

10 a

15 a

20 a

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Conclusions
Preferred operation: constant run of 1 kWe SOFC (efficient heat recovery necessary) Investment support is required to make SOFC micro-cogeneration financially viable. Computational results cannot be generalized.

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 Kari Alanne

Seasonal heat storages and residential micro-cogeneration

Presented in MICRO-COGEN 2008 conference in Ottawa

Objective and methods

Objective:

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to find the optimal shape and size of a seasonal mass thermal storage in a simulated residential SOFC plant located in Finland to find break-even price for storage investment

Methods:
IDA-Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE) estimation of hourly energy consumptions Post-processing the simulation results in a spreadsheet application
polynomial expression to predict the thermal production of an SOFC plant financial analysis to find out the economic value of accumulated energy savings and the break-even price

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Results and conclusions

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Optimal storage size: 150 m3, semi-spherical shape Optimum operational conditions:
constant operation of 3 kW e annual fuel savings of 5342 kWh a-1 annual cost savings of 194 EUR a-1 total savings of 2483 EUR (20 a)

Computational results cannot be generalized (e.g. optimal storage size). The financial viability of the storage was not evaluated in the computational study, but on the basis of experience the present configuration is hardly feasible.

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Cost-Optimized Operation of a Residential SOFC Plant

Presented in MICRO-COGEN 2008 conference in Ottawa

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Objective, methods and results

Objective:

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to evaluate the potential to improve the energy efficiency of a simulated residential SOFC plant located in Finland applying a simple cost-optimization algorithm

Methods:
IDA-Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE) estimation of hourly energy consumptions Post-processing the simulation results in a spreadsheet application
polynomial expression to depict the thermal production of an SOFC plant optimization algorithm to find out the control parameter (20%100% of the specific power) that results in minimum costs at given time step

Results:
Annual savings of 65 EUR compared to constant operation of 1 kW e were obtained using the optimization algorithm feasible in all probability

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Implementation and Validation of Combustion Engine Micro-cogeneration Routine for the Simulation Program IDA-ICE
Presented in Building Simulation 2009 in Glasgow

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Background
The original combustion engine model
was developed in the IEA/ECBCS Annex 42 for wholebuilding simulation programs is a grey-box model that circumvents the exact thermochemical modelling of combustion process addresses the dynamic effects of micro-CHP devices had been so far implemented in ESP-r, TRNSYS and EnergyPlus

The novelty of the IDA-ICE implentation:

thermal exhaust gas heat recovery

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Model validation
Method:
inter-program comparison with ESP-r, TRNSYS and EnergyPlus Annex 42 test program entailing 9 test series and total 44 separate cases

An excellent agreement was obtained

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SE micro-CHP in a single-family house performance assessment

3 5 % cut to primary energy consumption and CO2 emission compared to hydronic heating based on natural gas boiler and grid electricity depending on building type (standard vs. passive) and climate (Helsinki, Jyvskyl) The effect of exhaust heat recovery ~ 1 % Cumulative savings 3000-4000 (10 years, interest rate 2 %, electricity price 5-15 c)

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SE micro-CHP in small communities performance assessment

District micro-cogeneration: 9.5 kWe pellet burning SE micro-cogeneration plant 70 % of annual electricity consumption can be covered by local micro-cogeneration, when the number of houses < 10 Annual primary energy consumption curbed by 25 % and CO2 emission by 19 % in comparison with pelletfuelled district heating without CHP

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Research trends at Aalto university

Commercialization of a Rotary Steam Engine (RSE) micro-polygeneration (electricity + heat + desalination) system (technical development and experimental research) Hybrid systems (solar + micro-cogeneration) Zero and plus energy buildings, autonomous buildings The application of micro-co-/polygeneration in small communities Contribution to IEA/ECBCS Annex 54

Rotary Steam Engine (RSE)

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Ongoing pilot project for a 4 kWe / 30 kWth pellet-fuelled Novoro2, funded by Tekes Novoro Inc. collaboration with Applied thermodynamics research group since 2006 (-2010) Good applicability to biofuels, solar energy and thermal energy in desalination processes Estimated installed cost of a similar magnitude as for micro-CHP plants based on internal combustion engines

4 kWe / 30 kWth NOVO2 - RSE

Example: RSE and solar-powered desalination

Source : Novoro Inc. / Heikki Pohjola and Aalto University / Applied Thermodynamics

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RSE micro-cogeneration plant

RSE Evaporator Condenser Generator

Water container
Source : Novoro Inc. / Heikki Pohjola

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Collaboration opportunities?
Current research themes: Micro co-/polygeneration Zero and plus energy buildings, autonomous buildings
Definitions connection to life-cycle economy Applicability to
various building types climates

Simulation / optimization studies

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