ITM Power (United Kingdom)

The shift toward sustainable renewable energy coming with converter-based generation has significantly reduced system inertia introducing serious challenges in maintaining voltage and frequency stability, particularly under weak grid conditions with low short-circuit ratios. While grid-forming converters are under active development to address these issues, there remain challenges to overcome on the road to maturity and widespread commercial deployment. Our proposed solution, Unified Advanced Vector Control (UAVC), is specifically designed to operate with grid-following converters – and can be added as a software-only retrofit to converters already in service. Adding UAVC enhances converters’ stability and, in many cases, reduces or eliminates the need for expensive reactive compensation devices such as synchronous condensers.

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) electrolysers are devices that use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. They have garnered significant attention in industry due to their improved efficiency and potential for contributing to emission reduction in the industrial and transport sectors. Hydrogen is one of several solutions to accelerating the energy transition and can be utilised in transport, such as cars, and trains, manufacturing processes, such as steel, and power to gas applications [1]. The balance of plant (BoP) of the PEM electrolyser consists of the stack and all the subsystems required to ensure the proper functioning of the stack and the generation of high-purity hydrogen. The presence of impurities in PEM electrolyser feed water significantly impacts the lifetime, operation, and performance of a PEM electrolyser plant [2]. Inadequate water management can lead to water impurities and interruption of water supply to the stack. These factors can contribute to downtime, reduced reliability of the water subsystem components, and degradation or failure of the stack. In order to ensure reliable and efficient operation of PEM electrolyser plants, understanding failure events, including repair and replacement procedures, are essential. Although some studies have been conducted on reliability modelling of electrolyser cells/stacks, to our best knowledge, there are currently no published studies on the reliability analysis of PEM electrolyser BoP. This paper, therefore, presents a model for failure analysis of PEM electrolyser plant using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). It demonstrates how this approach is suitable for reliability and availability analysis of the PEM electrolyser BoP, understanding failure modes, determining time to system failure and identifying system critical components. The deficiencies of the traditional analysis methods are also discussed.

Dry-type transformers are used as alternatives to liquid-immersed transformers in applications with concerns about fire safety and environmental impact. Progress made in the past several decades has resulted in the development of dry-type transformers with voltages up to 145 kV and power levels up to 63 MVA. However, the expansion results in challenges associated with both thermal and electrical designs. This paper provides a critical review of the latest developments in thermal and electrical designs for dry-type transformers. Furthermore, the current technical challenges are summarized and the research opportunities for the next-generation transformers are discussed.

Cast resin dry-type transformers have been widely used in areas where fire risk and oil leakages are unacceptable, such as hospitals, airports and commercial areas. Compared to oil-immersed transformers, cast resin transformers have poor thermal cooling performances due to the low thermal conductivity of resins. Temperature is one of the key factors affecting the lifetime of the insulation system. Therefore, it is important to analyze the temperature distribution of cast resin transformers as a part of the design to ensure reliable operation. This paper develops a thermal model based on the finite element method to simulate the temperature distribution of cast resin transformers. The thermal model is first validated by comparing the simulation results with test data. Then it investigates the influence of critical parameters including resin material properties and environmental conditions on the average winding temperature and hot-spot temperature.

Ever wondered why a particular type of fibre is used for a certain application? Readers of this book will gain an appreciation of the answer to this question and more through understanding the chemistry behind the properties of the fibres. Providing a comprehensive overview of the various types of textile fibres which are available today, ranging from natural fibres to high-performance fibres which are very technologically advanced, the book is a revised and updated new edition of a highly successful text. Textiles are ubiquitous materials that many of us take for granted in our everyday lives. We rely on our clothes to protect us from the environment and use them to enhance our appearance. Textiles also find applications in transport, healthcare, construction and many other industries. The 3rd Edition of The Chemistry of Textile Fibres updates a significant amount of the information provided in the previous editions, such as the synthesis from renewable resources of monomers for producing synthetic fibres, emerging applications of nanofibres, production of electrically conducting fibres incorporating graphene and carbon nanotubes, and nano-finishing of textiles. It also gives greater emphasis to those aspects of textile chemistry which combat adverse environmental impact, including the chemical decomposition of synthetic polymers and strategies to reduce the damaging impact of microfibers. It introduces the production of micro- and nanomaterials from cellulose as an alternative to relatively toxic and non-ecofriendly micro- and nanomaterials produced from other sources, together with the bio-functionalisation of textiles. Students following A level courses or equivalent and first-year undergraduate students reading textile technology subjects at university will find this book a valuable source of information.

The performance improvement of using grain‐oriented electrical steels (GOES) in the stator of PM fractional‐slot modular machines is analysed in this study. Several models using a finite element tool are examined and it is concluded the techniques used in the actual software are not accurate for simulating anisotropic behaviour. Consequently, a simplified yet accurate modelling technique is proposed to simulate the performance of this type of electrical machines equipped with GOES. The advantages as well as the drawbacks of using GOES on the electromagnetic performance are investigated for different pole/slot combinations. It is concluded that the use of GOES is beneficial from an electromagnetic point of view mainly due to an increase on the radial component of the airgap flux density.

The energy sector represents undoubtedly one of the most significant “test cases” for 5G enabling technologies, due to the need of addressing a huge range of very diverse requirements to deal with across a variety of applications (stringent capacity for smart metering/AMI versus latency for supervisory control and fault localization). However, to effectively support energy utilities along their transition towards more decentralized renewable-oriented systems, several open issues still remain as to 5G networks management automation, security, resilience, scalability and portability. To face these issues, we outline a novel 5G PPP-compliant software framework specifically tailored to the energy domain, which combines i) trusted, scalable and lock-in free plug ‘n’ play support for a variety of constrained devices; ii) 5G devices’ abstractions to demonstrate mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications), uMTC (critical MTC) and xMBB (Extended Massive BroadBand) communications coupled with partially distributed, trusted, end-to-end security and MCM to enable secure, scalable and energy efficient communications; iii) extended Mobile Edge Computing (xMEC) micro-clouds to reduce backhaul load, increase the overall network capacity and reduce delays, while facilitating the deployment of generic MTC related NFVs (Network Function Virtualisation) and utility-centric VNFs (Virtual Network Functions).

During real-time operation of electric vehicles, motor parameter variations can significantly effect and deteriorate control performances of electric traction drives. For an open-loop torque control system, the parameter mismatch between the electric motor and the controller results in large steady-state error of the output torque response. This paper presents an adaptive torque controller based on Model Reference Adaptive Control technique for Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor drive systems. The proposed adaptive torque control scheme incorporating with a low-pass filter based torque estimator can provide the robustness against motor parameter variations. The simulation results show that the proposed torque control system using SVPWM-based vector control scheme can meet torque tracking requirements, and minimize steady-state error caused by parameter variations.