Smart Grid, Smart City

10th April 2014

Engineers Australia – Chatswood

Electrical Branch

Paul Myors Viriya Chittasy

Ceramic Fuel Cells and the Smart Grid

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1. Smart Grid, Smart City Program Overview

– The Distributed Generation and Distributed Storage

(DGDS) stream

2. BlueGEN Ceramic Fuel Cell Trial

– Fuel Cell Technology

– Trial details and implementation issues

3. Trial Results and Analysis

4. Next Steps

Topics

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Smart Grid, Smart City

Program Overview

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• $100 million Australian Government Initiative – Dept. of Resources,

Energy & Tourism

• Consortium led by Ausgrid with partners including IBM, GE Australia,

CSIRO, Transgrid, Gridnet, City of Newcastle, City of Lake Macquarie,

Hunter Water, Sydney Water, University of Newcastle, University of

Sydney

• Late 2010 to September 2013

The Smart Grid, Smart City Project

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• Rollout of key applications and technologies to test the

business case for smart grids

• Build public, corporate and industry awareness of the economic

and environmental benefits of smart grids

• Gather real data and information to drive broader industry

adoption of smart grid applications across Australia

• Investigate opportunities with other utilities (e.g. gas, water and

the National Broadband Network)

The Smart Grid, Smart City Project

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• Communication, sensing and control technologies installed

alongside the electricity network

• Real-time information to energy distributors efficient network

management

• Improved collection of customer consumption data with smart

meters customer control over power usage

• Distributed generation and storage technologies - managing the

increased uptake

What is a Smart Grid?

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Intermittent Generation

Steady State Generation

Management of DG, DS

Impact of islanding

Managing peak

consumption

Grid connection

issues

• Customer Applications

• Grid Applications

• Interoperability

• Information Dissemination

• Distributed Generation and

Distributed Storage

Streams

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Rural Trials - Upper Gundy Generation: Small wind turbines

Storage: Domestic batteries

Urban Trials - Elermore Vale Generation: Gas fuel cells, small wind turbines,

solar PV systems

Storage: Domestic batteries

Suburban Trials - Newington Generation: High penetration of domestic solar PV

systems

Storage: Grid battery

DGDS Trial Sites

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BlueGEN

Ceramic Fuel Cell

Trial

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• Investigate the potential for controllable distributed generation to

provide improvement in the following:

– Reliability of electricity supply

– Efficiency of energy supply

– Customer energy costs

Fuel Cell Trial Criteria

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How a Ceramic Fuel Cell Works

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Manufacturer Specifications:

• 60% electrical efficiency

• Up to 70% less carbon emission than coal power.

• Can supply continuously 24/7

• Up to 200 litres of 'free' hot water daily

• Australian owned and designed

BlueGEN Natural Gas Ceramic Fuel Cell

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BlueGEN Configuration

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• No gas connection readily

available or gas connection

information unavailable

• Finding volunteers supplied by

the required distribution centre

• Insufficient space, particularly

in medium / high density housing

Site Selection Issues

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• Site access difficulties

• Retaining customer hot water temperature preferences

• Piping requirements

• Coordinating customer, vendor, electrician, plumber etc.

Installation Challenges

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BlueGEN

Results and Analysis

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• Electrical Performance, Thermal Performance, Customer Benefits

• 15 months of data, Dec 2011 to Feb 2013

• Data collection by:

– Metering data

– BlueGEN monitoring

– Ausgrid monitoring

Results & Analysis Overview

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1.5kW operation: 52.6%

0.5kW operation: 35.8%

Modulated*: 39.8%

*1.5kW for 4 hrs per day and 0.5kW at other times

Manufacturer: 60% elec. efficiency for 1.5kW operation

Electrical Efficiency

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BlueGen: η = 39.8%

Stack Replacements

11 Nov 2012

1.5kW: 0.9%

drop in

efficiency

per month

Electrical Efficiency

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Generation Profile

90% of the time > 95% rated output

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BlueGen: η = 39.8%

Modulated Output: Typical Day

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Modulated Output: Net Reduction

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• Recovered heat from the fuel cell stack

• Used for hot water in this trial (available for spatial heating)

Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) System

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Energy Split

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Metric (Avg Daily) Measurement

Hot Water (HW) Used (L) 236L (range: 180L-320L)

Effective WHR Heat for HW (MJ) 6.0

Gas Booster Heat Energy (MJ) 12.6

Tank Input Temperature 15ºC

WHR Temp. Increase 20ºC

Energy Saved (%) 32%

HW Usage and System Measurements

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WHR Energy and Hot Water Usage Level

743L 57.1MJ

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Manufacturer: 25% increase to energy efficiency (1.5kW)

85% total energy efficiency

Results from best performing site:

Total Energy Efficiency: 61.4%

Thermal Efficiency

Thermal efficiency: 8.8%

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1) Estimated Energy Running Costs

2) Operation Assessment: installation, operation level,

tariff, gas prices, normal load profile vs. high load

profile

Customer Benefits

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1.5kW operation

Potential Energy Running Costs - Trial

Assumption: All electricity generated used on site

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Assumption: All electricity used on site

BlueGen

1.5kW (NC)

BlueGen

1.5kW

(Albury)

Elec

Import

1.5kW

c/kWh 13.92 11.22 23.81

Per Day $5.01 $4.04 $8.57

Per Month $155.31 $125.24 $265.67

Per Year $1,829 $1,475 $3,128

• 41.5% saving for Newcastle (NC)

• 52.8% saving for Albury 1.5kW BlueGen

• 1.7% loss for 0.5kW BlueGen in NC

Estimated Energy Running Costs

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Investigation of options and factors:

Installation

• Net metered or gross metered

Operation Level

• Continuous

• Modulated Operation

Tariff Conditions, Gas Costs

• Time of Use vs. Inclining Block

• Gas price

• Export rate

Operation Assessment

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Installation

• Net metered

• Location selection based on gas costs

Operation Level

• Continuous and full capacity: most efficient

Tariff Conditions

• Inclining Block for high load profile

• Export rate

Key Driver: Reduce import costs >> income from feed-in

Operation Assessment Results

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Newcastle/Albury Net Metered Gross Metered

TOU (7c/kWh feed-in) +6% +34% -67% -39%

TOU (15c/kWh feed-in) +56% +84% +8% +36%

Inclining Block (7c/kWh

feed-in)

+6% +34% -72% -42%

Inclining Block

(15c/kWh feed-in)

+56% +84% +9% +39%

Not affected by tariff: net export

Cost saving(+) or loss(-) by scenario at 1.5kW:

Operation Assessment:

Household Consumption of 12kWh/day

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Newcastle/Albury Net Metered Gross Metered

TOU (7c/kWh feed-in) +19% +24% -12% -7%

TOU (15c/kWh feed-in) +21% +26% +1% +6%

Inclining Block (7c/kWh

feed-in)

+22% +27% -12% -7%

Inclining Block

(15c/kWh feed-in)

+35% +40% +1% +6%

Cost saving(+) or loss(-) by scenario:

Operation Assessment:

Household Consumption at 58kWh/day

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Operation Assessment: Modulated Case

1% Saving to

customer, but

Grid benefits

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• 52.6% electrical efficiency at full power, 61.4% total

energy efficiency (including thermal)

• Reduces imported energy costs

• Key factors: installation cost and complexity, gas

price, electricity tariffs (including export)

• 6%-20% cost savings at 1.5kW fuel cell operation (in

Newcastle)

• Suited to constant load (efficiency loss with load

following/dynamic control)

• Suits customers with large baseload

Key Results

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Publicly available reports and data:

www.smartgridsmartcity.com.au

• Measurement and Monitoring Report

• Information Clearing House (ICH) data available

What’s Next?

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Questions