TY - CHAP A1 - Schulze-Buxloh, Lina A1 - Groß, Rolf Fritz T1 - Miniature urban farming plant: a complex educational “Toy” for engineering students T2 - The Future of Education 11th Edition 2021 N2 - Urban farming is an innovative and sustainable way of food production and is becoming more and more important in smart city and quarter concepts. It also enables the production of certain foods in places where they usually dare not produced, such as production of fish or shrimps in large cities far away from the coast. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to show students such concepts and systems in real life as part of courses: visits of such industry plants are sometimes not possible because of distance or are permitted by the operator for hygienic reasons. In order to give the students the opportunity of getting into contact with such an urban farming system and its complex operation, an industrial urban farming plant was set up on a significantly smaller scale. Therefore, all needed technical components like water aeriation, biological and mechanical filtration or water circulation have been replaced either by aquarium components or by self-designed parts also using a 3D-printer. Students from different courses like mechanical engineering, smart building engineering, biology, electrical engineering, automation technology and civil engineering were involved in this project. This “miniature industrial plant” was also able to start operation and has now been running for two years successfully. Due to Corona pandemic, home office and remote online lectures, the automation of this miniature plant should be brought to a higher level in future for providing a good control over the system and water quality remotely. The aim of giving the student a chance to get to know the operation of an urban farming plant was very well achieved and the students had lots of fun in “playing” and learning with it in a realistic way. KW - urban farming KW - food production KW - smart engineering KW - 3D printing KW - sustainability Y1 - 2021 N1 - FOE 2021 : The Future of Education International Conference – Fully Virtual Edition; 01.07.2021-02.07.2021; Florence, Italy ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schulze-Buxloh, Lina A1 - Groß, Rolf Fritz A1 - Ulbrich, Michelle T1 - Digital planning using building information modelling and virtual reality: new approach for students’ remote practical training under lockdown conditions in the course of smart building engineering T2 - Proceedings of International Conference on Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology 2021 N2 - The worldwide Corona pandemic has severely restricted student projects in the higher semesters of engineering courses. In order not to delay the graduation, a new concept had to be developed for projects under lockdown conditions. Therefore, unused rooms at the university should be digitally recorded in order to develop a new usage concept as laboratory rooms. An inventory of the actual state of the rooms was done first by taking photos and listing up all flaws and peculiarities. After that, a digital site measuring was done with a 360° laser scanner and these recorded scans were linked to a coherent point cloud and transferred to a software for planning technical building services and supporting Building Information Modelling (BIM). In order to better illustrate the difference between the actual and target state, two virtual reality models were created for realistic demonstration. During the project, the students had to go through the entire digital planning phases. Technical specifications had to be complied with, as well as documentation, time planning and cost estimate. This project turned out to be an excellent alternative to on-site practical training under lockdown conditions and increased the students’ motivation to deal with complex technical questions. KW - smart building engineering KW - building information modelling KW - virtual reality KW - lockdown conditions KW - emote practical training Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-1-952092-17-6 N1 - International Conference on Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology 2021, April 1-4, 2021 in Antalya, Turkey SP - 118 EP - 123 PB - ISTES Organization CY - San Antonio, TX ER - TY - CHAP A1 - El Moussaoui, Noureddine A1 - Kassmi, Khalil A1 - Alexopoulos, Spiros A1 - Schwarzer, Klemens A1 - Chayeb, Hamid A1 - Bachiri, Najib T1 - Simulation studies on a new innovative design of a hybrid solar distiller MSDH alimented with a thermal and photovoltaic energy T2 - Materialstoday: Proceedings N2 - In this paper, we present the structure, the simulation the operation of a multi-stage, hybrid solar desalination system (MSDH), powered by thermal and photovoltaic (PV) (MSDH) energy. The MSDH system consists of a lower basin, eight horizontal stages, a field of four flat thermal collectors with a total area of 8.4 m2, 3 Kw PV panels and solar batteries. During the day the system is heated by thermal energy, and at night by heating resistors, powered by solar batteries. These batteries are charged by the photovoltaic panels during the day. More specifically, during the day and at night, we analyse the temperature of the stages and the production of distilled water according to the solar irradiation intensity and the electric heating power, supplied by the solar batteries. The simulations were carried out in the meteorological conditions of the winter month (February 2020), presenting intensities of irradiance and ambient temperature reaching 824 W/m2 and 23 °C respectively. The results obtained show that during the day the system is heated by the thermal collectors, the temperature of the stages and the quantity of water produced reach 80 °C and 30 Kg respectively. At night, from 6p.m. the system is heated by the electric energy stored in the batteries, the temperature of the stages and the quantity of water produced reach respectively 90 °C and 104 Kg for an electric heating power of 2 Kw. Moreover, when the electric power varies from 1 Kw to 3 Kw the quantity of water produced varies from 92 Kg to 134 Kg. The analysis of these results and their comparison with conventional solar thermal desalination systems shows a clear improvement both in the heating of the stages, by 10%, and in the quantity of water produced by a factor of 3. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.03.115 SN - 2214-7853 N1 - The Fourth edition of the International Conference on Materials & Environmental Science (ICMES 2020), virtual conference, November 18-28, 2020, Morocco VL - 45 IS - 8 SP - 7653 EP - 7660 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mohan, Nijanthan A1 - Groß, Rolf Fritz A1 - Menzel, Karsten A1 - Theis, Fabian T1 - Opportunities and Challenges in the Implementation of Building Information Modeling for Prefabrication of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems in Small and Medium-Sized Contracting Companies in Germany – A Case Study T2 - WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, Vol. 205 N2 - Even though BIM (Building Information Modelling) is successfully implemented in most of the world, it is still in the early stages in Germany, since the stakeholders are sceptical of its reliability and efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the opportunities and obstacles to implementing BIM for prefabrication. Among all other advantages of BIM, prefabrication is chosen for this paper because it plays a vital role in creating an impact on the time and cost factors of a construction project. The project stakeholders and participants can explicitly observe the positive impact of prefabrication, which enables the breakthrough of the scepticism factor among the small-scale construction companies. The analysis consists of the development of a process workflow for implementing prefabrication in building construction followed by a practical approach, which was executed with two case studies. It was planned in such a way that, the first case study gives a first-hand experience for the workers at the site on the BIM model so that they can make much use of the created BIM model, which is a better representation compared to the traditional 2D plan. The main aim of the first case study is to create a belief in the implementation of BIM Models, which was succeeded by the execution of offshore prefabrication in the second case study. Based on the case studies, the time analysis was made and it is inferred that the implementation of BIM for prefabrication can reduce construction time, ensures minimal wastes, better accuracy, less problem-solving at the construction site. It was observed that this process requires more planning time, better communication between different disciplines, which was the major obstacle for successful implementation. This paper was carried out from the perspective of small and medium-sized mechanical contracting companies for the private building sector in Germany. KW - building information modelling KW - HVAC KW - prefabrication KW - construction KW - small and medium scaled companies Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2495/BIM210101 SN - 1743-3509 N1 - 4th International Conference on Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Design, Construction and Operations, 1–3 September 2021. Santiago de Compostela, Spain SP - 117 EP - 126 PB - WIT Press CY - Southampton ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mahdi, Zahra A1 - Dersch, Jürgen A1 - Schmitz, Pascal A1 - Dieckmann, Simon A1 - Chico Caminos, Ricardo Alexander A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Herrmann, Ulf A1 - Schwager, Christian A1 - Schmitz, Mark A1 - Gielen, Hans A1 - Gedle, Yibekal A1 - Büscher, Rauno T1 - Technical assessment of Brayton cycle heat pumps for the integration in hybrid PV-CSP power plants T2 - SOLARPACES 2020 N2 - The hybridization of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaics (PV) systems is a promising approach to reduce costs of solar power plants, while increasing dispatchability and flexibility of power generation. High temperature heat pumps (HT HP) can be utilized to boost the salt temperature in the thermal energy storage (TES) of a Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) system from 385 °C up to 565 °C. A PV field can supply the power for the HT HP, thus effectively storing the PV power as thermal energy. Besides cost-efficiently storing energy from the PV field, the power block efficiency of the overall system is improved due to the higher steam parameters. This paper presents a technical assessment of Brayton cycle heat pumps to be integrated in hybrid PV-CSP power plants. As a first step, a theoretical analysis was carried out to find the most suitable working fluid. The analysis included the fluids Air, Argon (Ar), Nitrogen (N2) and Carbon dioxide (CO2). N2 has been chosen as the optimal working fluid for the system. After the selection of the ideal working medium, different concepts for the arrangement of a HT HP in a PV-CSP hybrid power plant were developed and simulated in EBSILON®Professional. The concepts were evaluated technically by comparing the number of components required, pressure losses and coefficient of performance (COP). KW - Solar thermal technologies KW - Hybrid energy system KW - Concentrated solar power KW - Power plants KW - Energy storage Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-0-7354-4195-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086269 SN - 1551-7616 (online) SN - 0094-243X (print) N1 - SOLARPACES 2020: 26th International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, 28 September–2 October 2020, Freiburg, Germany IS - 2445 / 1 PB - AIP conference proceedings / American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Zahra, Mahdi A1 - Phani Srujan, Merige A1 - Chico Caminos, Ricardo Alexander A1 - Schmitz, Pascal A1 - Herrmann, Ulf A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Schmitz, Mark A1 - Gielen, Hans A1 - Gedle, Yibekal A1 - Dersch, Jürgen T1 - Modeling the thermal behavior of solar salt in electrical resistance heaters for the application in PV-CSP hybrid power plants T2 - SOLARPACES 2020 N2 - Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems are able to store energy cost-effectively in their integrated thermal energy storage (TES). By intelligently combining Photovoltaics (PV) systems with CSP, a further cost reduction of solar power plants is expected, as well as an increase in dispatchability and flexibility of power generation. PV-powered Resistance Heaters (RH) can be deployed to raise the temperature of the molten salt hot storage from 385 °C up to 565 °C in a Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) plant. To avoid freezing and decomposition of molten salt, the temperature distribution in the electrical resistance heater is investigated in the present study. For this purpose, a RH has been modeled and CFD simulations have been performed. The simulation results show that the hottest regions occur on the electric rod surface behind the last baffle. A technical optimization was performed by adjusting three parameters: Shell-baffle clearance, electric rod-baffle clearance and number of baffles. After the technical optimization was carried out, the temperature difference between the maximum temperature and the average outlet temperature of the salt is within the acceptable limits, thus critical salt decomposition has been avoided. Additionally, the CFD simulations results were analyzed and compared with results obtained with a one-dimensional model in Modelica. KW - Solar thermal technologies KW - Hybrid energy system KW - Concentrated solar power KW - Energy storage KW - Photovoltaics Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-0-7354-4195-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086268 SN - 1551-7616 (online) SN - 0094-243X (print) N1 - SOLARPACES 2020: 26th International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, 28 September–2 October 2020, Freiburg, Germany IS - 2445 / 1 PB - AIP conference proceedings / American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gedle, Yibekal A1 - Schmitz, Mark A1 - Gielen, Hans A1 - Schmitz, Pascal A1 - Herrmann, Ulf A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Mahdi, Zahra A1 - Chico Caminos, Ricardo Alexander A1 - Dersch, Jürgen T1 - Analysis of an integrated CSP-PV hybrid power plant T2 - SOLARPACES 2020 N2 - In the past, CSP and PV have been seen as competing technologies. Despite massive reductions in the electricity generation costs of CSP plants, PV power generation is - at least during sunshine hours - significantly cheaper. If electricity is required not only during the daytime, but around the clock, CSP with its inherent thermal energy storage gets an advantage in terms of LEC. There are a few examples of projects in which CSP plants and PV plants have been co-located, meaning that they feed into the same grid connection point and ideally optimize their operation strategy to yield an overall benefit. In the past eight years, TSK Flagsol has developed a plant concept, which merges both solar technologies into one highly Integrated CSP-PV-Hybrid (ICPH) power plant. Here, unlike in simply co-located concepts, as analyzed e.g. in [1] – [4], excess PV power that would have to be dumped is used in electric molten salt heaters to increase the storage temperature, improving storage and conversion efficiency. The authors demonstrate the electricity cost sensitivity to subsystem sizing for various market scenarios, and compare the resulting optimized ICPH plants with co-located hybrid plants. Independent of the three feed-in tariffs that have been assumed, the ICPH plant shows an electricity cost advantage of almost 20% while maintaining a high degree of flexibility in power dispatch as it is characteristic for CSP power plants. As all components of such an innovative concept are well proven, the system is ready for commercial market implementation. A first project is already contracted and in early engineering execution. KW - Hybrid energy system KW - Power plants KW - Electricity generation KW - Energy storage KW - Associated liquids Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-0-7354-4195-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086236 SN - 1551-7616 (online) SN - 0094-243X (print) N1 - SOLARPACES 2020: 26th International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, 28 September–2 October 2020, Freiburg, Germany IS - 2445 / 1 PB - AIP conference proceedings / American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Niederwestberg, Stefan A1 - Schneider, Falko A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Herrmann, Ulf T1 - Introduction to a direct irradiated transparent tube particle receiver T2 - SOLARPACES 2020 N2 - New materials often lead to innovations and advantages in technical applications. This also applies to the particle receiver proposed in this work that deploys high-temperature and scratch resistant transparent ceramics. With this receiver design, particles are heated through direct-contact concentrated solar irradiance while flowing downwards through tubular transparent ceramics from top to bottom. In this paper, the developed particle receiver as well as advantages and disadvantages are described. Investigations on the particle heat-up characteristics from solar irradiance were carried out with DEM simulations which indicate that particle temperatures can reach up to 1200 K. Additionally, a simulation model was set up for investigating the dynamic behavior. A test receiver at laboratory scale has been designed and is currently being built. In upcoming tests, the receiver test rig will be used to validate the simulation results. The design and the measurement equipment is described in this work. KW - Solar irradiance KW - Ceramics Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-0-7354-4195-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086735 SN - 1551-7616 (online) SN - 0094-243X (print) N1 - SOLARPACES 2020: 26th International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, 28 September–2 October 2020, Freiburg, Germany IS - 2445 / 1 PB - AIP conference proceedings / American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Blanke, Tobias A1 - Schmidt, Katharina S. A1 - Göttsche, Joachim A1 - Döring, Bernd A1 - Frisch, Jérôme A1 - van Treeck, Christoph ED - Weidlich, Anke ED - Neumann, Dirk ED - Gust, Gunther ED - Staudt, Philipp ED - Schäfer, Mirko T1 - Time series aggregation for energy system design: review and extension of modelling seasonal storages T2 - Energy Informatics N2 - Using optimization to design a renewable energy system has become a computationally demanding task as the high temporal fluctuations of demand and supply arise within the considered time series. The aggregation of typical operation periods has become a popular method to reduce effort. These operation periods are modelled independently and cannot interact in most cases. Consequently, seasonal storage is not reproducible. This inability can lead to a significant error, especially for energy systems with a high share of fluctuating renewable energy. The previous paper, “Time series aggregation for energy system design: Modeling seasonal storage”, has developed a seasonal storage model to address this issue. Simultaneously, the paper “Optimal design of multi-energy systems with seasonal storage” has developed a different approach. This paper aims to review these models and extend the first model. The extension is a mathematical reformulation to decrease the number of variables and constraints. Furthermore, it aims to reduce the calculation time while achieving the same results. KW - Energy system KW - Renewable energy KW - Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) KW - Typical periods KW - Time-series aggregation Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s42162-022-00208-5 SN - 2520-8942 N1 - 11th DACH+ Conference on Energy Informatics, 15-16 September 2022, Freiburg, Germany VL - 5 IS - 1, Article number: 17 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schwager, Christian A1 - Angele, Florian A1 - Nouri, Bijan A1 - Schwarzbözl, Peter A1 - Teixeira Boura, Cristiano José A1 - Herrmann, Ulf T1 - Impact of DNI forecast quality on performance prediction for a commercial scale solar tower: Application of nowcasting DNI maps to dynamic solar tower simulation T2 - SolarPACES 2022 conference proceedings N2 - Concerning current efforts to improve operational efficiency and to lower overall costs of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants with prediction-based algorithms, this study investigates the quality and uncertainty of nowcasting data regarding the implications for process predictions. DNI (direct normal irradiation) maps from an all-sky imager-based nowcasting system are applied to a dynamic prediction model coupled with ray tracing. The results underline the need for high-resolution DNI maps in order to predict net yield and receiver outlet temperature realistically. Furthermore, based on a statistical uncertainty analysis, a correlation is developed, which allows for predicting the uncertainty of the net power prediction based on the corresponding DNI forecast uncertainty. However, the study reveals significant prediction errors and the demand for further improvement in the accuracy at which local shadings are forecasted. KW - Process prediction KW - DNI forecasting KW - Nowcasting KW - Uncertainty analysis KW - Molten salt receiver system, Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52825/solarpaces.v1i.675 SN - 2751-9899 (online) N1 - SolarPACES 2022, 28th International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, 27-30 September, Albuquerque, NM, USA IS - 1 PB - TIB Open Publishing CY - Hannover ER -