(598p) Predictive Control and Analysis of a Sustainable Hybrid Energy System

Limited by the environmental regulations and the number of potential sources, the amount and rate of consumption of energy is largely constrained.  Hybrid Energy Systems offer an effective and sustainable route to meet the exponential growth in energy demand. Due to the considerable carbon footprint of fossil based power and societies overwhelming dependence on this source, fossil based power generation can be hybridized with clean energy sources as a potential solution. The proposed hybrid energy system combines a Pressurized Circulating Fluid Bed combustor burning PRB coal together with a small modular nuclear reactor and renewable wind power. 

Effective control of the proposed hybrid energy system poses a significant challenge given the number of control variables and the non-linear interaction between processes having a large disparity in the characteristic time scales. Model Predictive Control (MPC) has proven effective in decoupling interactions between control variables.  In the present work, MPC is applied to the proposed hybrid energy system with its conflicting operating constraints to achieve better process efficiency and improved economic performance. The proposed hybrid energy system involves many conflicting hard constraints associated with intermittent energy source (i.e., wind) coupled with baseload energy (i.e., nuclear and/or coal). This work presents an effective control strategy capable of accommodating the proposed hybrid energy system.