Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating The Impact Of Increased Cycling On Thermal Power Plants Due To Wind Energy Penetration In The Midwest: A Case Study, Joscelyne Larson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most significant shifts in the mix of U.S. electricity generation over the past few years has been the rapid expansion of renewable energy resources, especially solar and wind. However, fossil fuels are still necessary to fulfill the world’s energy requirements. Despite efforts to increase the use of renewable energy sources, these sources can be at times unreliable, causing countries around the world to continue to rely on base load units such as coal and natural gas. This decrease in fossil fuels and increase in renewable energy sources presents many complex issues in terms of power system planning, …

Data-Driven Test Cases For Sustainability Assessment Of Smart Grid Initiatives In Organized Electricity Markets, Venkat Durvasulu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary aim of this dissertation is to deliver a technique to augment power system test cases with realistic open-source data to represent a deregulated power system. These test cases are intended to be used by power system researchers who require a test case that is capable of performing economic and environmental analysis on a bulk-power level. These test cases are capable of estimating the cost of bulk-energy for economic analysis and harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) and air polluting (AP) emissions for environmental sustainability analysis. These cases are developed for simulations that are intended to be at the transmission level …

Deflector Effects In Fixed Bed (Biomass) Combustors And Non-Combusting Packed Beds, Babak Rashidian

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Combustion can be used to thermally process biomass fuels and yield both heat and power in a sustainable manner. At present, direct combustion of solid biomass is the primary approach for generating electricity and heat when these fuels are used at a commercial scale.

Deflectors have been used in the freeboard section of industrial combustors to reduce radiant heat loss through flue gases and for particle emissions abatement. Freeboard deflectors can also influence emissions and freeboard temperature distributions by changing the flow dynamics. Despite much research into laboratory scale biomass combustion and packed beds, there have been no systematic studies …