Acronym of “Intelligent, Integrated and Adaptive Platform of Micro-cogeneration with high efficiency for residential uses”. It is a project “Industria 2015 – Bando Efficienza Energetica”.
The research program involves the development of a micro-cogeneration platform for the residential market sized on a 1.5 kW electrical power.
The heart of the platform is the micro-cogeneration unit that will be developed in three different technologies:
The thermophotovoltaic micro-cogenerator will be realized by integrating a condensing boiler for residential applications with an innovative concentration system coupled to photovoltaic cells for the production of electrical energy. The cogeneration with internal combustion, based on the most established technology, will use an innovative internal combustion engine motorcycle-derived and will derive its own content of innovation exactly from the small power size of the co-generator. It will also be elaborated a three-generative option with high energetic efficiency, combining the combustion engine to a heat pump coming from a vehicle and to an ejection system. Finally, the third technology to be developed will be represented by a micro-cogenerator with a Rankine cycle integrated in a condensing boiler still. Each of these technologies will present a different ratio between electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency.
The introduction of a micro-cogenerator in a residential area cannot ignore the contemporary exploitation of energy from renewable sources like the sun or the wind, the use of which indeed must receive priority over energy from non-renewable sources (although produced as efficiently as it happens in cogeneration). To check the coupling of the micro-cogenerator with a renewable source a wind micro-generator and a solar thermal concentration system will be developed inside the project. The exploitation of wind power next to the micro-cogenerator represents an interesting example of integration among a generation of electricity free, but discontinuous and a controlled generation, but from a non-renewable source. The interest in the development of the solar thermal concentration system is instead linked to its integration with the micro-cogenerator with Rankine cycle.
The need to integrate the micro-cogeneration unit within the domestic environment and the parallel generation of energy from renewable sources requires an accurate redesign of both the heating system and the electrical system. The heating system will be reconsidered in order to optimize the heat flows from the generators to the loads (thermal or refrigerators) and in this area we will be investigated innovative solutions relating to the thermal exchange concerning new materials and new fluids. As it regards the electrical system will be developed electrical interfaces that allow to connect the micro-cogenerator to the domestic network and the external network considering the different levels of voltage and current made available by the micro-cogenerators.
To rule this micro-cogeneration platform constituted by the micro-cogeneration units, by the generators from renewable source and by the electric and thermal networks will be a specific hardware / software called "Unità di gestione energetica microcogeneratore e flussi termici ed elettrici residenziali (HECU -Home Energy Control Unit)". That unit will optimize the energetic flows and will be able to manage the complexity of the system, by logging in real time to information on the weather forecasts and to energy prices or to any other useful information for optimal operation of the plants.
The staff of the Laboratory of Solar Collectors realized the optical design of parabolic modules for solar concentration and the optical design of the elliptical cavity. Moreover tests have been made on materials to be used in the realization of the elliptical chamber.
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