Jorge Xiberta Bernat

Steel mill slags energy potential: the case of the steel factory of Arcelor-Mittal in Asturias (Spain)

Slag accounts for most of the residuals or by-products of the steel manufacturing process and represents a not inconsiderable amount of energy waste and CO2 emissions. Energy recovery from steel mill slags is not actually performed because of the difficulty of the industrial implementation, but the actual demand and the incentives for new electricity generation plants based on renewable energies and on industrial waste heat recovery offer a new opportunity to evaluate the feasibility of this process. This article presents a review of the slag energy potential on a global scale, and a proposal for a recovery plant in the factories of Arcelor-Mittal in Asturias (Spain), based on a steam Rankine cycle for electricity production in a turbine. The plant production and viability have been analyzed using the typical technical and economic values for this kind of plant. Also, a parametric study has been performed on the heat recuperator efficiency and investment rate.

Simulations of hybrid system varying solar radiation and microturbine response time

Hybrid power systems, such as combinations of renewable power sources with intermittent power production and non-renewable power sources, theoretically increase the reliability and thus integration of renewable sources in the electrical system. However, a recent increase in the number of hybrid installations has sparked interest in the effects of their connection to the grid, especially in remote areas. This paper analyses a photovoltaic-gas microturbine hybrid system dimensioned to be installed in La Paz (Mexico).The research presented in this paper studies and quantifies the effects on the total electric power produced, varying both the solar radiation and the gas microturbine response time. The gas microturbine and the photovoltaic panels are modelled using Matlab/Simulink software, obtaining a platform where different tests to simulate real conditions have been executed. They consist of diverse ramps of irradiance that replicate solar radiation variations, and different microturbine response times reproduced by the time constants of a first order transfer function that models the microturbine dynamic response. The results obtained show that when radiation varies quickly it does not produce significant differences in the power guarantee or the microturbine gas consumption, to any microturbine response time. However, these two parameters are highly variable with smooth radiance variations. The maximum total power variation decreases greatly as the radiation variation gets lower. In addition, by decreasing the microturbine response time, it is possible to appreciably increase the power guarantee although the maximum power variation and gas consumption increase. Only in cases of low radiation variation is there no appreciable difference in the maximum power variation obtained by the different turbine response times.