AVESTAR™ Center Advances Operational Excellence for Clean Energy Plants

NETL's Advanced Virtual Energy Simulation Training And Research (AVESTAR™) Center brings together high-fidelity real-time dynamic simulators, 3D virtual immersive training systems (ITSs), state-of-the-art facilities, and leading energy experts to address the many challenges industry faces in achieving operational excellence for clean energy plants. At the AVESTAR Center, NETL, WVU, and partners are exploiting a dynamic simulator and 3D ITS for an IGCC power plant with CO₂ capture for use in collaborative R&D, workforce training, and engineering education.

Gas Mixture Controller Improves Power Plant Performance

A research team of NETL and Pitt collaborators
are using Raman spectroscopy to measure the concentrations of gaseous components in natural
gas and alternative fuel gases such as those produced from coal gasification systems. The innovation will allow operators to monitor and
control gas mixtures-prior to injection for turbines
and other advanced systems, thereby maximizing efficiency and minimizing pollutant emissions.

Hybrid Power System Promises High-Efficiency and Low Carbon Footprint

A WVU-NETL research team is developing a comprehensive controller for fuel cell, gas turbine, and fuel processing hybrid equipment that will be suitable for application in industrial-, commercial-,
and utility-scale generation systems of the future. This work creates a viable path for the implementation of new technologies that can vastly reduce the dependency of the United States and other world nations on fossil fuels for electricity production
while simultaneously facilitating the capture and sequestration of CO₂.

CO₂ Membrane Provides Cost Effective Global Climate Change Solution

Technologies to capture CO₂ and significantly
reduce its emission from power plants offer a promising solution to global climate change, but
such applications can be expensive. To help remove barriers to this technology, researchers at NETL
and Pitt are working to identify polymer materials that are more effective and less costly than the commercial plastics currently used in carbon
capture and storage technologies.

Electrochemical Techniques Offer Low Cost Route to Carbon Capture

Carbon sequestration (CO₂ capture followed by permanent storage) is a viable technique to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions from large point sources such as power plants.  Capture must be conducted in an energy- and cost-effective manner to minimize the impact on cost of electricity to the consumer.  Collaborators at CMU and NETL have researched electrochemical techniques for CO₂ separation from flue gases and their applicability for oxygen separation from air, both of which could dramatically reduce the cost of generating clean power from coal.