Simulation: A Key Design Aid in the Energy Industry
Mariasundaram Antony, General Electric
3D manufacturing, advanced sensors, big data, the industrial Internet, smart grid, and several other new trends will change the way we do engineering and product development in the future. In the center of all these trends is the need to simulate the different engineering processes involved—including process scenarios, fault conditions, failure events, and others—so that we can assess product integrity at the design stages rather than on the shop floor or in front of the customer.
The extent of simulation in our day-to-day engineering has increased several-fold thanks to advances in computing infrastructure. The level of simulation done today could not have been imagined some years back. Today, we simulate the state of the grid in real time to understand any perturbations that could transform into major grid instability. We are also using advanced system-level simulation across multiple scenarios to determine the performance of wind turbines on a wind farm to optimize parameters and take appropriate design or control action. Simulation also enhances our ability to support the customer by testing actual scenarios in our labs and providing corrective action.
Simulation fidelity, which is influenced by a couple of factors, is critical. One important factor is the functions that used to represent the system being simulated; the more closely they simulate the physics, the more confidence we have in the simulation. Fidelity also depends on the level of computing infrastructure available to perform the simulation. High-fidelity simulation calls for more accurate representation of the physics and an associated high-end computing infrastructure.
Another important aspect is the user experience around the simulation process. In the energy industry, we use plant-level simulators that represent the control systems for the entire plant to look at all possible failure scenarios and address them before the final application software is dispatched to the customer. Operator training simulators are also available to train plant operators in efficient and safe plant operation. Both of these types of simulators need to provide a user-friendly interface in terms of application being simulated. Connected with this is the need to have both general and specific functions in the simulator software. General functions, like control system functions, act as building blocks for the total system, whereas specific application functions are used for building simulations targeting a specific process.
In contract to decades past, different forms of energy need to coexist in the grid today, necessitating the ability to predict the reliability and availability of the total power system. Complex power systems involving coal, gas, and renewables—which vary in their ability to deliver continuous power—are a significant challenge to simulate. Future systems will continue to complex; simulation software needs to be able to model such complex systems of systems with high fidelity and accuracy.
In summary, simulation is a critical part of the design process in the energy industry; it is more a necessity than a choice. Without simulation, we can neither understand the complex systems of systems and components of the system very well nor provide robust solutions to the toughest challenges of the energy industry.
Recorded: 21 Aug 2013
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