A COMPUTATIONAL WORKBENCH ENVIRONMENT FOR VIRTUAL POWER PLANT SIMULATION

This is the fifth Quarterly Technical Report for DOE Cooperative Agreement No: DE-FC26-00NT41047. The goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate a computational workbench for simulating the performance of Vision 21 Power Plant Systems. Within the last quarter, our efforts have become focused on developing an improved workbench for simulating a gasifier based Vision 21 energyplex. To provide for interoperability of models developed under Vision 21 and other DOE programs, discussions have been held with DOE and other organizations developing plant simulator tools to review the possibility of establishing a common software interface or protocol to use when developing component models. A component model that employs the CCA protocol has successfully been interfaced to our CCA enabled workbench. To investigate the software protocol issue, DOE has selected a gasifier based Vision 21 energyplex configuration for use in testing and evaluating the impacts of different software interface methods. A Memo of Understanding with the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development (CCSD) in Australia has been completed that will enable collaborative research efforts on gasification issues. Preliminary results have been obtained for a CFD model of a pilot scale, entrained flow gasifier. A paper was presented at the Vision 21 Program Review Meeting at NETL (Morgantown) that summarized our accomplishments for Year One and plans for Year Two and Year Three