Collaborative Research: Design and Control of Networked Offshore Hydrokinetic Power-Plants with Energy Storage

摘要：发展充满活力的清洁能源产业，通过减少污染和创造大量就业机会，将带来重大的社会效益。除了风能、太阳能和传统水电等成熟的可再生能源外，洋流还有可能使全球能源组合多样化，并显著增强其实力。该项目将进行基础研究，重点是利用洋流涡轮机从海流中提取电力。这些涡轮机将在主要近海洋流中靠近海面运行，并将以阵列形式相互连接。该项目将解决与阵列内这些涡轮机的协调、安全、可靠和可靠的运行相关的基本问题，以最大限度地提高能量生产。还将调查设备和储能设备之间的联网电气互联，重点是高效地将电力从一组涡轮机馈送到陆上电网。不同群体的教师和学生研究人员将为这一项目做出贡献，创建一个不同类型的学者网络，以改善研究和教育的基础设施。该项目的重要发现将与弗吉尼亚理工大学、新奥尔良大学和佛罗里达大西洋大学的积极教育和推广计划相结合，这些计划定期通过演讲、研讨会、网络、会议和夏令营活动与公众分享研究成果。预计将在能源部门、海洋工程和技术、海洋车辆和设备以及自主和控制系统方面产生更广泛的科学和技术影响。洋流涡轮机将通过将发电送到电网的本地馈电以阵列形式相互连接。这些装置将受到水流扰动的影响，如水流剪切、湍流、海浪以及邻近涡轮机产生的剪切和湍流。该项目的总体目标是确保这些涡轮机的自主、可靠和强大的协调运行，以便在存在实际扰动和子系统故障的情况下最大限度地产生能量和进行适当的功率调节。为此，将对具有储能的海洋涡轮机农场的容错飞行控制、管理子系统故障的监控切换控制、编队和网络控制进行研究。新型控制系统将被开发出来，包括利用直升机飞行控制技术和现代多变量约束控制技术进行主动桨距角控制。控制算法将使用商业设备的数字表示来创建和评估，以增加适用性并鼓励向商业部门转移。将开发和评估利用储能的电力调节解决方案，以从多个设备收集电力，然后传输到岸上和电网连接。该项目还将研究通过燃料电池或氢内燃机进行的能量储存和再生。基本原理和实验数据系列将结合在一起，创建整个存储系统的全面模拟。该模型将能够为系统设计、运行调度和控制提供稳态性能数据。建模和数值模拟的进步将使控制器的开发和测试具有非常类似于商用船用涡轮机的动力学的数值表示。这些将为测试和评估开发的控制器提供解决方案，以及提高涡轮机性能预测能力。测功机和水中测试数据将有助于推动开发的技术走向实施。将涉及不同学科的方法和工具，如控制系统理论和技术、流体动力学建模、优化以及数值计算和分析。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Abstract:Growing a vibrant clean energy industry will lead to major societal benefits by reducing pollution and creating a large number of jobs. In addition to well-established renewables like wind, solar and traditional hydropower, marine currents have the potential to diversify and significantly strengthen the global energy portfolio. This project will conduct basic research focused on extracting electrical power from marine currents using ocean current turbines. These turbines will operate near the sea surface in major offshore currents and will be interconnected in arrays. The project will address fundamental issues related to coordinated, safe, reliable, and robust operation of these turbines within the array for maximum energy production. Networked electrical interconnections between devices and energy storage will also be investigated, with a focus on efficiently feeding electrical power from an array of turbines to an onshore grid. A diverse population of Faculty and student researchers will contribute to this project, creating a heterogeneous network of scholars that will improve the infrastructure for research and education. Important findings from this project will be integrated with active education and outreach programs at Virginia Tech, the University of New Orleans, and Florida Atlantic University which regularly share research outcomes with the public through presentations, workshops, the web, conferences, and summer camp activities. Broader scientific and technological impacts are expected in the energy sector, ocean engineering and technology, marine vehicles and devices, as well as autonomy and control systems.Ocean current turbines will be interconnected in arrays through a local feed-in which sends generated power to a grid. These devices will be affected by flow perturbations such as current shear, turbulence, marine waves, as well as the shear and turbulence generated by neighboring turbines. The overall project goal is to ensure autonomous, reliable and robust coordinated operation of these turbines for maximum energy production and proper power conditioning in the presence of realistic perturbations and sub-system failures. For this purpose fault tolerant flight control, supervisory switching control to manage sub-system failures, formation and network control for ocean current turbine farms with energy storage will be investigated. Novel control systems, which include active blade pitch angle control by leveraging helicopter flight control technology and modern multivariable constrained control techniques will be developed. Control algorithms will be created and evaluated using numerical representations of commercial devices to increase applicability and encourage transfer to the commercial sector. Power conditioning solutions that utilize energy storage will be developed and evaluated to collect power from multiple devices for transfer to shore and grid connection. The project will also investigate energy storage and regeneration through fuel cells or hydrogen internal combustion engines. Basic principles and experimental data series will be combined to create a comprehensive simulation for the entire storage system. The model will be able to provide steady-state performance data for system design and for operations scheduling and control. Modeling and numerical simulation advancements will enable development and testing of controllers on numerical representations with dynamics very similar to commercial marine turbines. These will provide solutions for testing and evaluating the developed controllers, as well as advancements to turbine performance prediction capabilities. Dynamometer and in-water testing data will help advance the developed technologies towards implementation. Methods and tools from diverse disciplines such as control systems theory and technology, hydrodynamics modeling, optimization, as well as numerical computation and analysis will be involved.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.