Institute of Power Engineering

Deep-sea mining is accelerating from speculative ambition to strategic reality, carrying profound implications for Australia’s security, economy, and influence in the Pacific. With an estimated 8 to 20 trillion USD in critical minerals underpinning global decarbonisation, competition for the seabed is intensifying while legal uncertainty, environmental risk, and foreign-state ambitions threaten to reshape maritime power balances. For a nation whose prosperity relies on secure sea lanes and a stable rules-based order, these emerging pressures cannot be ignored. This report assesses how developments in deep-sea mining intersect with Australia’s defence interests across environmental, legal, and geostrategic dimensions. It contends that Australia must reinforce international law, monitor Pacific Island states’ interest in deep-sea mining, and be ready to respond if maritime Australia has an opportunity to be a regional leader in sustainable and legally compliant deep-sea mining, but it must first understand the dynamics and complex issues playing out in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The research evaluates suspensions for electrophoretic deposition of CuMn 1.9 Fe 0.1 O 4 (CMF-0.1) coatings on Crofer 22 APU substrates, targeting solid oxide cells (SOC) applications. A matrix of 22 solvent systems (ethanol, acetone, isopropanol, terpineol, and their mixtures) was studied under analogous processing conditions with respect to conductivity, current density, deposition yield (DY), coating thickness, and coating porosity (SEM-EDS). Although the relationships between suspension parameters and coating properties are complex, certain trends were identified. Among acetone/ethanol systems, deposition was most efficient, yielding porosity above 15 %; however, high ethanol content favored excessive thickness and defect formation. In contrast, terpineol/isopropanol systems showed the poorest performance. For 5 selected suspensions, static stability was assessed using backscattering/transmittance spectra and Turbiscan Stability Index (TSI) values, while zeta potential was determined via ELS. The coatings exhibited low surface resistivity and effective chromium barrier performance after 200 h at 700 °C. The results provide a solid foundation for the rational design of EPD suspensions. • Optimized solvent composition for EPD of CuMn 1.9 Fe 0.1 O 4 -based protective coatings • Investigated 22 solvent systems using acetone, ethanol, isopropanol, terpineol • Deposition yield <5 mg·cm −2 led to thin (<10 μm) and often discontinuous films. • 5 optimal coatings efficiently blocked CrO x during ASR test (200 h at 700 °C).

The Electric Power Systems Foundation (EPSF) Committee of the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) is developing a design guide for assessing combined loads on transmission foundations imposed by the structure and transient environmental events. A recent EPSF state of practice paper identified the lack of standard approaches for assessing combined loading as a design shortcoming needing to be addressed. The DFI document will provide guidance to drive consistency across the industry, support efficient, competent designs, and bridge the gap between structural and geotechnical design parameters for foundation designs. This paper summarizes efforts to date by the EPSF Committee in the development of these guidelines. Current design codes such as NESC, G.O. 95, and industry accepted loading cases defined in ASCE 74 are used in the transmission line foundation design process and provides the sources of structure loading. But other foundation loads can result from transient environmental events that impose loads directly on transmission foundations or loss of soil support around foundations. Background information is presented on load and ground loss contributions from environmental impacts such as river scour and seismic events and associated risks of these loads are identified. Design load combinations with environmental considerations should consider event probability in alignment with other current industry standards and sound engineering judgment. The effort to develop and implement load combinations is discussed. The purpose of this paper and future guidelines is to raise awareness of current design shortcomings and provide the industry with best practices for foundation design that align with an upcoming ASCE overhead line and substation foundations Manual of Practice.

A concept for a network of small satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) is proposed to ensure robust and independent communication capabilities within power systems, even during widespread outages and disruptions to terrestrial communication systems, thereby enhancing system resilience. The paper proposes a methodology for deriving functional requirements, designing and simulating a LEO satellite-based communication system that serves as an exclusive, highly available, and highly secure communication channel for the energy industry. Through expert interviews with system operators, power system services and their communication needs are identified, which can be supported by a satellite system. A customized constellation design, complete with essential hardware components, is proposed and evaluated using a simulation framework that models the power system, LEO satellites, and terrestrial networks. Results confirm the feasibility of the designed LEO satellite constellation and its compliance with the defined communication requirements. The results also identify further research for the effective operation of the LEO satellite constellation for power system communication.

With mounting concerns about global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels, renewable energy has emerged as the preferred power source. Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) play a critical and rapidly evolving role in this transition. However, variations in wind flow frequently create fluctuations in wind turbine output power (WT), which has a negative influence on the overall power grid. This study focuses on developing an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based pitch angle controller to address power variability in grid-connected wind energy conversion systems. One key feature of the proposed controller is its ability to manage output power fluctuations regardless of whether the wind speed exceeds or falls below the WT’s rated speed. The proposed control technique’s efficiency and reliability were assessed by implementation and testing in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. This system validates the control method’s increased performance, as assessed by dynamic response in grid-injected current, reference tracking capability, 1.69s settling time, 0.76 overshoot, precision, and robustness.

Abstract Frequent online water wash of Gas turbine compressor is a critical activity to sustain the site-corrected compressor isentropic efficiency after each offline water wash in dusty environment of Middle East. Higher frequency of online water wash impacts the compressor efficiency, compressor pressure ratio, power output, heat rate, exhaust flow and exhaust temperature of Gas Turbine. At one of the CCPP sites of ACWA Power, HDGT OEM requested to change the online water wash frequency from three times a week to once a week. The reason behind this request was compressor blade erosion due to higher droplet sizes of online water wash spraying circuit. This investigation is an effort to estimate how the frequency of online water wash impacts the isentropic efficiency of the compressor for two different scenarios having different frequencies of online water wash. The first scenario was a one-time online water wash per week with a water rinsing cycle and once a month with detergent cycle. The second scenario was with three-times online water washes per week; two with a water rinsing cycle and one with detergent cycle. Various parameters related to compressor performance were compared e.g. ISO-corrected compressor isentropic efficiency, compressor discharge temperature, compressor pressure ratio, exhaust temperature, exhaust temperature, exhaust temperature, exhaust flow, corrected power output and corrected heat rate. The impact on bottoming cycle due to shift in improved exhaust flow due to better compressor performance was also captured. During the investigation, it was identified that the higher frequency of online water wash contributed to sustaining the compressor efficiency for longer periods. By shifting the frequency of online water washing from once a week to three times a week, the GT output was improved by 2MW at similar operating conditions.

Advancing sustainable energy systems—especially in rural areas and underdeveloped countries—depends on the integration of renewable energy sources into microgrids. This paper looks at the challenges connected to the integration of renewable energy sources—such as solar, wind, and hydro power—into microgrids as well as the recommended solutions to counterbalance these challenges. Along with innovative technologies and strategies that can enhance the efficiency and reliability of microgrid systems, issues such as intermittency, energy storage, grid stability, and system optimization are discussed. This paper also looks at the economic, technological, and regulatory factors influencing the establishment of renewable-powered microgrids and provides case examples demonstrating successful integration. Stressing the future potential for general adoption of renewable energy microgrids, the report concludes by underlining the significance of continuous research and government assistance in addressing present challenges.

The complete characteristics used by commercial codes to simulate failures in pumping systems encountered e.g. in power plants, date back many decades. Since then, pump design methods have changed, resulting in, among others, the increase of their efficiency and the stability of characteristics. There is a need to see how these changes have affected the complete characteristics in a full range of pump operation. In the article, it is shown that the new complete characteristics give different failure simulation results than the old ones. Describing the dynamic pump operation, understood as determining the basic parameters that change at any time, such as: flow, lifting height, driving torque and rotational speed, is very important, especially for large installations whose operation is of key importance. A convenient form for analysing dynamic states are Suter functions based on inverse trigonometric functions, because they allow showing all pump operating states using one continuous (other than e.g. spline) function. Therefore, as an approximation of the exact characteristics, Fourier harmonic functions were proposed. The effect of the approximation on the accuracy of the simulation was checked.

High-Temperature Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (HT-ATES) can provide flexibility to the heat provision systems as required by the transient fluctuation in the thermal energy demand. Such multicomponent-system concepts are currently experiencing increasing attention in the German Molasse Basin (southern Germany), where, HT-ATES can compose an essential element of the energy systems, contributing towards the transition to decarbonized heat supply. In this work, we highlight an example from the greater area of Munich to analyze the efficient integration of seasonal high-temperature heat storage in the highly utilized Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic geothermal reservoir (North Alpine Foreland Basin) into a local District Heating Network (DHN). The favorable geographic location in the greater area of Munich holds the advantage of large amounts of available excess energy and suitable subsurface conditions for HT-ATES concept development, combined with large DHNs to utilize the surplus energy. The case study network operates within a range of 72 &amp;#176;C up to 94 &amp;#176;C in dependency to the atmospheric temperature. It is equipped with a geothermal plant comprising its prime heat source element, while it is further supported by a supplementary conventional fossil-fuel powered heat provision unit to cover peaks in demand and redundancies.Our energy system analysis aims at extending the investigated network by numerically integrating the HT-ATES in the form of a seasonal heat provision component to cover peak loads, and thus partly replace the fossil-fueled heat generator. To this end, we initially elaborate on the efficient design and operation of the multicomponent energy system with focus on the integration of the HT-ATES into the heat supply scheme. Subsequently, the co-simulation approach that captures the interaction between the different subsystem elements is in focus. The HT-ATES system is simulated with the MOOSE-based GOLEM numerical code, and describes the thermal-hydraulic processes triggered by the storage of high-temperature fluids with 110 &amp;#176;C into the Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic geothermal reservoir. In parallel, the DHN is modelled with the TRNSYS-TUD software environment and, apart from the thermal-hydraulic parameters of the analyzed DHN, it additionally provides the transient accumulated load curve. The coupling of the two systems requires the exchange of both the operating mass fluxes and fluid temperature between the two modelled systems.