The University power plant: A readily accessible remote learning platform

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Abstract

Combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration is critical to the economic viability of many industries, including fuels, chemicals, plastics, paper, and ferrous and nonferrous metals. U.S. investment in new CHP is expected to remain >$10 billion/yr, and there are many ongoing CHP systems that can realize substantial dollar savings through optimal energy management schemes. CHP systems provide an excellent platform for students to study thermodynamics, certain unit operations and process design principals, optimization, data reconciliation, and emissions control. Even better, many Universities have ready (albeit remote) access to such a system on their own campus. At LSU, we are opening our newer (commissioned 2005, 20 MW, $20 MM) cogeneration system to the world of engineering education through real-time data delivery using formats which can communicate with virtually any control/data acquisition system and then broadcast compressed data via the net. Easy to use (from Excel) education modules have been developed which make use of these data to teach the above-mentioned topics in classes ranging from introductory Sophomore-level to capstone design. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings

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