Mauro Villarini

Technical-Economic Analysis of an Innovative Cogenerative Small Scale Biomass Gasification Power Plant

The use of biomass waste in high efficient low pollutants emissions micro-cogeneration plants overcomes the main biomass barriers: competition with the food and material uses, dispersion of a low energy density fuel and high emissions.

Performance analysis of greenhouses with integrated photovoltaic modules

Thanks to the DM 19.02.2007, Italian government supported the development and the expansion of solar photovoltaic in Italy. The feed-in tariff had a great success, and like in Spain and Germany big size photovoltaic plants have been built, especially in the south of the country. The south of Italy presents high irradiation (up to 1.700 equivalent hours) and economically agriculture is an important local resource. This aspect led to the concept of the solar greenhouses, a way to match the electricity production by PV modules with an improvement of the cultivation possibilities. Solar greenhouses includes integrated PV modules mounted on the roof oriented to south and his design is new and still has to be evaluated in details. In particular important parameters like the luminance, the type of cultivations and the temperature of the PV modules must be carefully analyzed to have a real good match between the agriculture and the electricity production purpose. In the paper TRNSYS 16 has been used for the simulation of temperatures and humidity in the structure. The simulation had the goal to define the performance of the solar greenhouse during the year, with the possibility to individuate important construction parameters for the realization of a greenhouse efficient from all point of views.

Modeling Small Scale Solar Powered ORC Unit for Standalone Application

When the electricity from the grid is not available, the generation of electricity in remote areas is an essential challenge to satisfy important needs. In many developing countries the power generation from Diesel engines is the applied technical solution. However the cost and supply of fuel make a strong dependency of the communities on the external support. Alternatives to fuel combustion can be found in photovoltaic generators, and, with suitable conditions, small wind turbines or microhydroplants. The aim of the paper is to simulate the power generation of a generating unit using the Rankine Cycle and using refrigerant R245fa as a working fluid. The generation unit has thermal solar panels as heat source and photovoltaic modules for the needs of the auxiliary items (pumps, electronics, etc.). The paper illustrates the modeling of the system using TRNSYS platform, highlighting standard and “ad hoc” developed components as well as the global system efficiency. In the future the results of the simulation will be compared with the data collected from the 3 kW prototype under construction in the Tuscia University in Italy.

Overview and comparison of global concentrating solar power incentives schemes by means of computational models

The present paper gives an updated picture of concentrating solar power incentives schemes in the World. It resumes the main figures of the incentives schemes per Country such as plant size limit, feed-in tariff value, duration, inflation recovery and the eligibility to hybrid plants. It also gives a comparison of the incentives schemes in terms of revenues and profitability. The investment revenues have been calculated considering the values of the incentives and local radiation. The profitability has been computed, as internal rate of returns of the project (IRRs) considering the incentive value, the solar radiation and the incentive length per each Country and a fixed value of capital expenditure equal for all Countries. It shows that South Africa and Spain grant the most profitable incentive schemes with IRRs of 28% and 25% respectively and that USA grant the lowest feed-in tariff, as benefit the highest solar radiation, and thus show the lowest profitability.

Technical-Economic Analysis of an Innovative Small Scale Solar Thermal - ORC Cogenerative System

The generation of electricity from solar thermal source has continued to garner more attention due to the very attractive environmental performance, the applicability to small distributed users and as alternative to the fossil fuels power generation. Indeed, solar thermal energy, through the coupling with ORC systems, becomes fit for electric power generation as well and, with a proper thermal storage, can deliver more equivalent hours than other residential systems. The paper analyses, by means of system modelling simulation, a small solar power plant composed by a CPC heat pipe solar collector device feeding a thermal storage, an ORC and an absorber unit. Beside the analysis of configuration and design, this paper proposes an economic analysis taking into consideration the applicable incentive. The evaluation highlights the economic viability of the proposed system and tries to define a roadmap to optimize results consisting in acceptable PBT and positive NPV.

Perovskite sensing materials for syngas composition monitoring and biomass gasifier numerical model validation: A preliminary approach

Biomass gasification represents a suitable choice for global environmental impact reduction, but more efforts on the process efficiency need to be conducted in order to enhance the use of this technology. Studies on inputs and outputs of the process, as well as measurements and controls of syngas composition and correlated organic and inorganic impurities, are crucial points for the optimization of the entire process: models of the system and sensing devices are, thus, very attractive for this purpose. In particular, perovskite based chemoresistive sensors could represent a promising technology, since their simplicity in function, relatively low cost and direct high temperature operation. The aim of this work is to develop a steam fluidized bed biomass gasifier model, for the prediction of the process gas composition, and new perovskite compounds, LaFeO3 based, as sensing material of chemoresistive sensors for syngas composition and impurities measurements. Chemometric analysis on the combustion synthesis...

IDENTIFICATION OF SPATIALLY EXTENDED POLLUTION SOURCES BY MEANS OF BLIND SOURCES SEPARATION ALGORITHMS

Blind Source Separation (BSS) is able to recover original source signals from their mixtures. Well-known sources are brain electric activity, acoustic phenomena, earthquakes. Here we apply BSS to air pollution analysis identificating gas emissions using only sensor measurements mutually and statistically independent. This application consents an independent, low cost and real time environmental monitoring system. Besides, a real-world pollution case from an industrial region of central Italy is presented and processed by BSS.