Advanced Virtual Energy Simulation Training and Research (AVESTAR™) Center

The NETL world-class AVESTAR Center is dedicated to achieving operational excellencefor highly-integrated, commercial-scale, energy and process plants. Attaining operational excellence requires that industrial companies maximize the efficiency and profitability from their operations through excellent control, and derive maximum business value from all their plant assets, all while improving safety and reducing negative environmental impacts. Developing, training, and preparing a highly-skilled engineering and operations workforce is another critical component of operational excellence. The AVESTAR Center is addressing all of these goals by bringing together advanced dynamic simulation and control technologies, state-of-the-art simulator facilities, and leading industry experts to focus on the smart operation of clean energy and process plants.

AVESTAR is launched

AVESTAR Immersive Training System (ITS) trainees wear active shutter glasses to experience a 3-d virtual environment.

The AVESTAR Center was launched at the NETL and West Virginia University (WVU) in March 2011 with deployment of a high-fidelity, real-time dynamic simulator for an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant with carbon capture. The IGCC dynamic simulator is designed as a full-scope operating training system (OTS) that enables engineers and operators to experience a wide range of operating scenarios, including normal full-load operation, plant startup, shutdown, power demand load following, and variable CO₂ capture rates.

Users can also analyze IGCC plant response to disturbances (e.g. , fluctuating coal composition), equipment malfunctions (e.g. , pump failure), and abnormal situations (e.g. , gas leak). In July 2012, the AVESTAR team also deployed a first-of-a-kind 3D virtual immersive training system (ITS) for use in power plant familiarization and walkthrough, as well as interactive training of IGCC field operators. By fully integrating the real-time dynamic simulation-based OTS with the virtual reality-based ITS, the IGCC training scope covers both control room and field operators, providing hands-on experience with the plant’s physical operation and illustrating how various pieces of equipment will operate under almost any scenario and condition.

Leveraging AVESTAR’s simulation technology and facilities, the NETL has established an industry workforce training program in collaboration with its training partner, Fossil Consulting Services (FCS). The program offers a variety of IGCC courses, ranging from introductory to advanced, that merge classroom learning and simulator-based learning in a control-room operations environment. The AVESTAR team also works directly with clients to analyze their needs and goals for customized training programs. Target audiences include control room and field operators, as well as engineers and managers from electric utilities, engineering firms, and equipment vendors. To further accelerate technology transfer to the energy industry, the NETL completed license agreements in fall 2011 with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and three EPRI CoalFleet industry partners, namely BP Alternative Energy, Doosan, and Southern Company, allowing them to use the IGCC dynamic simulator for in-house training, education, and demonstrations.

Integrating Carbon Capture

Trainees learn IGCC operations using the AVESTAR Operating Training System.

Based on early interest, AVESTAR’s training program is off to a good start and generating significant attention. In several inaugural demonstrations at the AVESTAR Center, more than 50 engineers and researchers from industry, government, and academia received hands-on experience with the gasification section of the IGCC simulator. In July 2011, the Center also offered its first IGCC training course for participants from the power industry. In fall 2011, the AVESTAR team provided training on the carbon capture section of the IGCC dynamic simulator to the industry advisory board for the DOE’s Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative aimed at accelerating the widespread deployment of CO₂ capture technology to hundreds of power plants.

More recently, FCS used AVESTAR’s high-fidelity combined cycle dynamic simulator to deliver an eight-day training course to ten experienced power plant operators from the Brazilian integrated multinational energy company, Petrobras. In September 2012, the NETL hosted the Gasification Technologies Council (GTC) executive committee at the AVESTAR Center for IGCC simulator-based demonstrations and partnership discussions. Participating GTC executive committee members included leading gasification and IGCC industry experts from Bechtel, CH2MHill, GE, Peabody Energy, Phillips 66, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, RTI, and Siemens. At the 2012 Gasification Technologies Conference in Washington D.C. , the AVESTAR team showcased the IGCC dynamic simulator and 3D virtual ITS in live demonstrations to industry participants from around the world.

Curriculum for training a new supply of plant operators

In November 2012, NETL signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Pierpont Community and Technical College (Pierpont) and WVU to establish a cooperative working arrangement for providing hands-on, simulator-based, workforce training and education on the safe, efficient, and reliable operation of clean energy plants. The MOU will enable Pierpont to leverage the AVESTAR facility at WVU and to use its dynamic simulators and 3D virtual ITSs in Pierpont’s Power Plant Technology Program. Operated in partnership with FirstEnergy, Pierpont’s one-year curriculum is aimed at developing a well-qualified supply of control room and field operators for power generation stations in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.

Under the auspices of the NETL Regional University Alliance (NETL-RUA), the AVESTAR team is transferring AVESTAR technology to future engineering professionals by leveraging its IGCC dynamic simulator in chemical engineering education and research at WVU. WVU chemical engineering professors are introducing undergraduate and graduate students to IGCC plant operation and control concepts in two semester-long courses on process dynamics and process control. WVU and NETL researchers are also collaborating on a number of AVESTAR R&D projects on advanced process control, optimization, and sensor placement for IGCC plant operations.

Seeking to expand the AVESTAR power plant simulator portfolio, NETL has recently signed two cooperative research and development agreements with Invensys Operations Management to develop, test, and deploy dynamic simulators for a supercritical once-through (SCOT) pulverized coal power plant and a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant. These two new high-fidelity, real-time dynamic simulators will provide training, education, and research on plant operations and control for SCOT and NGCC systems, as well as processes for post-combustion carbon capture, utilization, and compression.

Using AVESTAR for Smart Manufacturing technologies

The AVESTAR team.

Regarding recent research news, the AVESTAR Center has joined the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) to participate in collaborative smart manufacturing (SM) R&D and serve as a virtual energy plant test bed for SM technologies. AVESTAR’s high-fidelity real-time dynamic simulators will be used to test integration with SM software platforms and plug-and-play interoperability with customizable real-time data-driven applications in areas such as modeling and simulation, sensors and control, process monitoring and fault diagnosis, and decision-making analytics and enterprise-wide optimization.

For more detailed information on AVESTAR simulators, facilities, staff, and partners, as well as training, education, and research programs, please visit www.netl.doe.gov/avestar.