The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has selected 12 projects to receive funding through its Crosscutting Research Program’s Transitional Technology Development to Enable Highly Efficient Power Systems with Carbon Management initiative.
The NETL Crosscutting Technology Research Program is intended to bridge the gap between fundamental and applied technology by supporting efforts that improve existing plants through efficiency; provide materials and techniques for advanced power generation; and introduce and foster growth of new technologies.
The projects, which require at least a 20 percent match from the awardee, fall under five specific topics of interest: technology transfer of high performance structural materials for fossil energy; hot gas path sensors for industrial gas turbines; testing of novel control architecture incorporating sensor information in advanced energy systems; simulation initiatives for high efficiency carbon management systems; and water management and treatment for power plant and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage operations.
Project descriptions follow.
Materials for Advanced Ultrasupercritical (AUSC) Steam Turbines – AUSC Component Demonstration
Energy Industries of Ohio (Independence, OH), will team with AECOM, ALSTOM Power, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, the Electric Power Research Institute, and General Electric and Youngstown Thermal/Thermal Engineering Group to develop plans leading to full-scale pilot testing of key components related to a project to increase efficiency of coal power plants, making them more competitive by reducing water use and emissions, particularly greenhouse gases.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $187,500/ Total Funding: $937,500 (20 percent cost share)
Superalloy for Heavy Duty Gas Turbine Wheels for Improved Combined Cycle Efficiency
General Electric Company (Niskayuna, NY) will partner with The Ohio State University to help increase combined cycle turbine efficiency for next generation advanced cycle operations that require new alloys capable of operating at 1,200 degrees and above.
Cost: DOE: $749,999 / Non-DOE: $187,500 / Total Funding: $937,499 (20 percent cost share)
Advanced Ultrasupercritical Materials Thick-Walled Cycling Header for ComTest
Alstom Power Inc. (Windsor, CT) will partner with GE Global Research, EPRI, Southern Company, American Electric Power and FirstEnergy to design and test a high temperature nickel-based superalloy thick-walled header for cycling and flexible plant operation in new and existing plants. The project has future applications for supercritical CO2 cycles in power plants, nuclear power, solar power and natural gas combined cycle units.
Cost: DOE: $696,416 / Non-DOE: $174,104 / Total Funding: $870,520 (20 percent cost share)
Optimization of Advanced Steels for Cyclic Operation of Power Plants through an Integration of Material Processing Testing, Modeling and Novel Component Test Validation
Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) will team with Babcock and Wilcox Company and Wyman-Gordon to qualify improved high-performance structural materials for use in current power plants to improve flexibility.
Cost: DOE: $749,058 / Non-DOE: $187,264 / Total Funding: $936,322 (20 percent cost share)
Novel Temperature Sensors and Wireless Telemetry for Active Condition Monitoring of Advanced Gas Turbines
Siemens Corporation (Princeton, NJ) will partner with Arkansas Power Electronics to develop a high-temperature wireless telemetry system for collecting real-time long-term data from rotating components creating a “smart turbine component” with a longer life than conventional sensors able to operate in harsh environments.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $187,500 / Total Funding: $937,500 (20 percent cost share)
Advanced Control Architecture and Sensor Information Development for Process Automation, Optimization, and Imaging of Chemical Looping Systems
The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) will partner with Babcock & Wilcox, Tech4Imaging, and American Electric Power to develop an advanced autonomous control architecture and imaging and optimization sensor for the Ohio State chemical looping process. Success will lead to increased operational reliability of the chemical looping technology with impacts for CO2 capture from solid and gaseous fuel conversion.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $705,000 / Total Funding: $1,455,000 (49 percent cost share)
Evaluation and Demonstration of Commercialization Potential of Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) Tools Within gPROMS Advanced Simulation Platform
Process Systems Enterprise Limited (Cedar Lakes, NJ) will partner with Carnegie Mellon University and West Virginia University to identify market opportunities and develop commercialization plans for state-of-the-art computation modeling and simulation tools created by CCSI within gPROMS (general PROcess Modeling System), software that provides a modeling environment.
Cost: DOE: $695,000 / Non-DOE: $206,853 / Total Funding: $901,853 (23 percent cost share)
MFIX-DEM Phi: Performance and Capability Improvements toward Industrial Grade Open-source DEM Framework with Integrated Uncertainty Quantification
Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ) will partner with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories to improve the performance and capabilities of Multiphase Flow with Interphase eXchanges-Discreet Element Model (MFIX-DEM) leading to industrial adoption of the open source. MFIX is open-source software that has become the standard for comparing, implementing and evaluating multiphase flow models.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $187,760 / Total Funding: $937,760 (20 percent cost share)
MFIX DEM Enhancement for Industry-Relevant Flows
The Regents of the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) will partner with Particulate Solid Research and National Renewable Energy Laboratory to improve the performance of MFIX-DEM code to enable a transformative shift for industrial use by using a profiling methodology to identify numerical and algorithmic bottlenecks.
Cost: DOE: $656,898 / Non-DOE: $170,523 / Total Funding: $827,421 (21 percent cost share)
Advanced Integrated Technologies for Treatment and Reutilization of Impaired Water in Fossil Fuel-Based Power Plant Systems
Ohio University (Athens, OH) will partner with West Virginia University and American Electric Power to validate the technical/commercial viability of an advanced multistage process for treatment and reutilization of impaired water as make-up water in fossil fuel-based power plants. The project will conduct small-scale testing and prepare the technology for a pilot scale test.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $187,500 / Total Funding: $937,500 (20 percent cost share)
Model-Based Extracted Water Desalination System for Carbon Sequestration
General Electric Company will partner with Pennsylvania State University to develop a cost-effective water recovery process from high-salinity extracted formation water that can increase the capacity of deep saline formations for CO2 storage with minimal cost impact.
Cost: DOE: $749,322 / Non DOE: $255,131 / Total Funding: $1,004,453 (25 percent cost share)
Low-Energy Water Recovery from Subsurface Brines
Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, NC) will partner with Veolia Water Solutions and Technologies and Tampa Electric Company to develop and demonstrate bench-scale feasibility of a low-cost, low-energy water treatment process that uses non-aqueous solvents for the economical extraction of clean water from high-total dissolved solids (TDS) brines. TDS is a concentration of minerals dissolved in water which requires treatment before the water can be used for other processes. The project is intended to provide a solution to the water management issues encountered in high-TDS brine treatment. It is expected that the project will determine the most appropriate membrane for eliminating residual solvents in the water after TDS removal in order to meet potable standards.
Cost: DOE: $750,000 / Non-DOE: $187,500 / Total Funding: $937,500 (20 percent cost share)