Session: 06-01 Innovative Combined Cycle

Paper Number: 82516

82516 - "Gas Turbine Combined Cycle Range Enhancer - Part 2: Performance Demonstration" 

In the present energy scenario, combined cycles gas turbine (CCGTs), are considered key drivers for the energy transition towards fossil-free energy production, as long as they are able to cope with rapid changes of power request, and to extend their operating range beyond the limits imposed by the environmental conditions in which they operate.

The European H2020 project PUMPHEAT aims at achieving this goal thanks to the integration of the CCGT with a heat pump (HP) and a thermal energy storage (TES). Both HP and TES are used to condition the air flow at the gas turbine compressor inlet, thus modifying the whole CCGT power output. To study this setup, a dedicated cyber-physical facility was built at the University of Genova laboratories, Italy.

The plant is composed by physical hardware, such as a 100kWel micro gas turbine, (mGT), a 10 kWel HP and a 180 kWh change phase material-based TES. These real devices are up-scaled thanks to performance maps and real-time dynamic models to emulate a full-scale heavy duty 400 MW GTCC with a cyber-physical approach.

Physical data from the real devices are monitored in real-time and elaborated by a three-levels model predictive control system, which determines the optimal configuration and controls all the power fluxes of the plant, in order to minimize the mismatch with a real electric power demand curve.

The three key components (mGT, HP and TES) are actually run in the laboratory, and data collected by various sensors is used to feed in real-time both the simulated CCGT bottoming cycle model and the three-levels control system. At the same time, the control system determines the operative point of the real devices.

With the aim to analyze the performance of the facility and to assess the potential of the proposed technique, different operative configurations were tested: one for reducing the power production of the plant below the minimum environmental load (MEL) and two for augmenting the plant maximum power at certain ambient conditions.

Tests allowed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed concept and to characterize the transient behavior of real components.

Presenting Author: Tommaso Reboli University of Genoa

Presenting Author Biography: Research fellow, Department of Mechanical, Energy, Management and Transport Engineering, University of Genoa, Italy.<br/>Ph.D. on the topic of Wave Energy Converters (2020).<br/>Involved in different projects, responsible for experimental activities of H2020 EU funded Pump Heat project.

Authors:

Tommaso Reboli University of Genoa
Marco Ferrando University of Genoa
Luca Mantelli University of Genoa
Lorenzo Gini University of Genoa
Alessandro Sorce University of Genoa
Alberto Traverso University of Genoa