Rupp Carriveau

University of Windsor · Turbulence and Energy Laboratory

As an emerging flexible-scale energy storage technology, underwater compressed gas energy storage (UW-CGES) is regarded as a promising energy storage option for offshore platforms, offshore renewable energy farms, islands, coastal cities, etc. Liquid accumulation often occurs in underwater gas transmission pipelines, which is a challenge to overcom...

Irrigation water temperature plays an essential role in yield and quality of greenhouse products. In the summer, the irrigation water can be warming than desirable, leading to certain problems such as root diseases. In this paper, the performance of using stormwater pond to cool irrigation water for a commercial greenhouse was studied using the Tra...

Two-phase bubbly flow can lead to challenges during the charging period for hydraulically-compensated Compressed Air Energy Storage systems. In this study, upward two-phase flow systems have been investigated in large diameter vertical pipes to better understand when the transitions to problematic flow regimes occur. A comprehensive dimensional ana...

Threats to water supply systems have increased in number and intensity. Natural disasters such as earthquakes have caused different types of damage to water distribution networks (WDN), particularly for those with aged infrastructure. This paper investigates the resilience of an existing water distribution network under seismic hazard. An earthquak...

Selection of the best component arrangement and sizing measurement for hybrid energy systems (HES) is vital to provide a reliable, consistent, and cost-effective energy supply. This study investigates a techno-economic feasibility analysis of stand-alone HES on Western side of Pelee Island, Canada, whose load is 2426 kWh/day. Several hybridization...

Governments have implemented different interventions and response models to combat the spread of COVID-19. The necessary intensity and frequency of control measures require us to project the number of infected cases. Three short-term forecasting models were proposed to predict the total number of infected cases in Canada for a number of days ahead....

Underwater compressed air energy storage was developed from its terrestrial counterpart. It has also evolved to underwater compressed natural gas and hydrogen energy storage in recent years. UWCGES is a promising energy storage technology for the marine environment and subsequently of recent significant interest attention. However, it is still imma...

As a flexible-scale energy storage technology, underwater compressed gas energy storage is an emerging enabler of the transition to renewable and sustainable energy structure. Liquid accumulation often occurs in the process of underwater pipeline gas transmission, posing a challenge that must be overcome. In this study, an experimental investigatio...

Condition Monitoring (CM) is an essential element of securing reliable operating conditions of Wind Turbines (WT) in a wind farm. CM helps optimize maintenance by providing Remaining Useful Life (RUL) forecast. However, the expected RUL is not often reliable due to uncertainty associated with the prediction horizon. In this paper, we employ high-le...

Hydrogen-based microgrids are receiving attention as critical pathways are being charted for the decarbonization of our thermal, transport, and power grids. In this article, clean, cost-effective, and reliable hybrid microgrid designs are developed to satisfy hydrogen and electricity loads in three energy-stressed islands of Eastern Canada, namely...

Low energy efficiency is one of the most significant shortcomings of industrial pneumatic systems. The isobaric air storage tank is a new concept for improving the energy efficiency of pneumatic systems. In this study, comprehensive accumulated and transient exergy analyses are conducted to provide insight into the energy‐saving mechanism of isobar...

Underwater energy storage provides an alternative to conventional underground, tank, and floating storage. This study presents an underwater energy storage accumulator concept and investigates the hydrodynamic characteristics of a full-scale 1000 m3 accumulator under different flow conditions. Numerical simulations are carried out using an LES turb...

Electric vehicles (EVs), photovoltaics, heat pumps and energy storage are changing the demands placed on electricity systems and can pose significant challenges for system operators and distribution companies. Furthermore, clustering of behaviours and technologies throughout different areas of distribution systems can produce broad variation in loa...

Compared with traditional isochoric storage of compressed air in pneumatic systems, isobaric storage possesses many advantages. In this study, a novel isobaric compressed air storage device is proposed by introducing compressed gas energy storage and a nonlinear cam transformation mechanism. The critical profiles on both sides of cam are deduced an...

There is growing interest in multi-purpose offshore floating platforms that: harvest energy from the sun, wind, water, and waves; desalinize water; host agriculture and aquaculture; and house residents. While there are some basic commonalities with well established, oil and gas platforms, lighter variants are functionally different with little wind...

Reassessment of the fatigue life for wind turbine structural components is typically performed using deterministic methods with the same partial safety factors as used for the original design. However, in relation to life extension, the conditions are generally different from the assumptions used for calibration of partial safety factors; and using...

Performance and economic analyses of a hybrid solar thermal/photovoltaic-battery energy storage (ST/PV-BES) system for a commercial greenhouse were developed. One of the objectives of the study is to evaluate the best configuration of photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal (ST) modules, and battery energy storage size to have the minimum levelized cos...

In this study, energy, exergy, and environmental (3E) assessments have been conducted on a proposed combined-cycle power plant (CCPP) with three pressure levels of the HRSG and reheating process. 3-E design approaches cross-link mechano-electric and environmental objectives. Herewith, the suggested combined-cycle is formed by a gas unit, condenser,...

This work deals with the efficiency of cavern-based compressed air energy storage (CAES) facilities. Due to the complex interactions of the components of cavern-based CAES plants, a small deviation from designed for operating conditions can significantly alter the efficiency of the system. In this work, the sensitivity of individual system componen...

Corporate power purchase agreements (CPPA)s made up the majority of new wind energy PPAs signed in the U.S. in the last several years. Companies such as Google and Amazon have realized the environmental and economic benefits of partnering with renewable energy (RE) developers, directly, virtually, or through their utility, to bring new projects int...

The present investigation deals with the flow behind a torus, placed normal to the flow direction in three different aspect ratios (defined as the main diameter to the cross-sectional diameter of the torus) of 2, 3 and 5 at a constant Reynolds number of 9000. The Large Eddy Simulations (LES) are carried out to model the three-dimensional flow field...

Due to the dynamic interactions of the components of cavern‐based compressed air energy storage plants, optimizing this system is challenging and a small change in the design parameters, such mass flow rate, compression ratio, expansion ratio can significantly alter the efficiency of the entire system. An adaptive genetic algorithm has been invoked...

As wind energy is becoming a significant utility source, minimizing the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) expenses has raised a crucial issue to make wind energy competitive to fossil fuels. Wind Turbines (WTs) are subject to unexpected failures due to operational and environmental conditions, aging, etc. An accurate estimation of time to failures as...

A 30-year financial model and business case is presented for implementing a microgrid at an Ontario school to meet their energy needs and net-zero carbon emissions. The project considers several factors including capital expenses, electricity and natural gas cost projections, CO2 emission credits, efficiency measures, demand charge mitigation [and...

Gear faults contribute to a significant portion of failures in wind turbine system. As such, condition monitoring and fault detection of these components assist in maintenance scheduling; hence, preventing catastrophic failures of the gearbox. This paper introduces a new hybrid fault detection approach to detect gear faults in wind turbines. to acc...

Regression Tree (RT) forecasting models are widely used in short-term demand forecasting. Likewise, Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) models are known for their ability to cluster and organize unlabeled big data. Herein, a combination of these two Machine Learning (ML) techniques is proposed and compared to a standalone RT and a Seasonal Autoregressive In...

The failure progression of Wind Turbine (WT) bearings comprises of multiple degraded health states due to applied load by Varying Operating Conditions (VOC). Therefore, determining the VOC impact on the failure dynamics severity is an essential task for bearing failure prognostics. This paper introduces a hybrid prognosis method using real-time Sup...

The performance of cavern-based Compressed Air Energy Storage systems is highly dependent on the ambient condition. In this work, the effect of ambient temperature and pressure on the round trip efficiency of this technology is investigated via exergy analysis. Three different cavern sizes 8k, 140k, and 450k cubic meters are considered. The result...

In North America, many utility-scale turbines are approaching the half-way point of their anticipated initial lifespan. Accurate remaining useful life (RUL) estimation can provide wind farm owners insight into how to optimize the life and value of their farm assets. An improved understanding of the RUL of turbine components is particularly essentia...

Short-term water demand forecasting models address the case of a real-time optimal water pumping schedule. This study focuses on developing artificial neural network (ANN) models to forecast water demand 24 h and 1 week ahead. A number of studies have shown that the relationship between water demand and the driving variables is nonlinear. Two ANN t...

Greenhouses consume a great deal of energy to heat their building envelopes. The strategic integration of solar energy and thermal energy storage (TES) can help to boost energy performance and reduce the carbon emission in the sector. In this paper, the benefits of adding phase change materials (PCM) to the water tank of a solar heating system have...

A graduate level course on economic metrics and innovative finance mechanisms for has been developed. Topics include non-traditional financing structures for project development and the application of economic metrics to investment decision making. The development of this course was motivated by recent surveys and through consultation with wind ene...

Some North American wind owners and operators are approaching and surpassing the halfway points of their power purchase agreements (PPAs). The initial 20-year contracts were intended to align with the operational life of the assets, however it is expected that some assets will continue to be operational if proactively maintained. An LCOE EXT was pr...

This paper introduces a new condition monitoring approach for extracting fault signatures in wind turbine blades by utilizing the data from a real-time Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. A hybrid fault detection system based on a combination of Generalized Regression Neural Network Ensemble for Single Imputation (GRNN-ESI) alg...

Air accumulator is a critical component in Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage systems and Buoyancy Energy Storage systems. In order to bridge the gap between the CFD simulations and experiment verification of flow around air accumulator, in this study, the force characteristics and flow structures around a balloon-shaped air accumulator bluff...

The energy sector is fast-evolving. Carbon policies, distributed energy systems, net-zero construction, electric vehicles, and non-utility procurement are some examples that have the potential to impact conventional energy systems. There is a need to further the understanding of how systems will respond to simultaneous and extreme increases in thes...

Understanding how multiple drones can coordinate and communicate is essential for advancing multi-agent robotics. Multiple drone applications are growing with technology and have reached areas such as: farming, meteorology, pollution detection, and forest fire monitoring. The focus of this paper is to illustrate how current systems manage mission c...

In North America, many utility‐scale turbines are approaching, or are beyond the half‐way point of their originally anticipated lifespan. Accurate estimation of the times to failure of major turbine components can provide wind farm owners insight into how to optimise the life and value of their farm assets. In this study, data records from a wind f...

With the rapid development of marine renewable energy technologies, the demand to mitigate the fluctuation of variable generators with energy storage technologies continues to increase. Offshore compressed air energy storage (OCAES) is a novel flexible-scale energy storage technology that is suitable for marine renewable energy storage in coastal c...

Maintaining a reliable energy system requires accurate forecasts for energy demand in both the short and long term. The wealth of smart meter data stored by most modern utilities provides an important resource, however sub-metering of specific end-uses is still fairly limited. This makes it more difficult to assess the impact of new or different cu...

As utility scale wind farms age, maintenance and contingency planning become increasingly important. Decisions about when and how to repair or replace major turbine components can critically influence profitability. Condition monitoring and prognostic reliability modelling are sometimes used to support these decision-making processes. These often r...

A data driven exergy analysis has been conducted for the first known grid connected Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage facility, located in Toronto, Canada. Further to examining the plant through conventional exergy analysis, results were enhanced by splitting exergy destruction rates into avoidable and unavoidable, as well as endogenous and...

A torus could replace an orifice flow meter with the benefit of a lower pressure loss. The flow structure of a torus with an aspect ratio of three was scrutinized in a wind tunnel. This study details the vortical structures at 5, 7, 10 and 15 core diameters downstream of the torus. This paper also studied the drag coefficient of the torus. The Reyn...

Bearing failures are the most common type of malfunction in wind turbines. As such, isolating these defects enables maintenance scheduling in advance; hence, preventing further damage to turbines. This paper introduces a new fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) method to isolate two types of bearing failures in Wind turbines (WTs). The proposed FDD...

Marine renewable energies are promising enablers of a cleaner energy future. Some technologies, like wind, are maturing and have already achieved commercial success. Similar to their terrestrial counterparts, marine renewable energy systems require energy storage capabilities to achieve the flexibility of the 21st century grid demand. The unique di...

An underwater compressed air energy storage (UWCAES) system is integrated into an island energy system. Both energy and exergy analyses are conducted to scrutinize the performance of the UWCAES system. The analyses reveal that a round‐trip efficiency of 58.9% can be achieved. However, these two analyses identify different directions for further imp...

Exergy analysis has been applied in various engineering fields. Most of these analyses have been conducted under steady-state conditions. This can be of limited use when the operation under consideration is highly transient. Such is the case for energy storage systems connected to a dynamic grid. In this work, a transient exergy analysis has been p...

Bubble columns are widely used in many industrial applications. Gas holdup knowledge is an essential element in bubble column design and process optimization. Despite the simple structure of bubble columns, the behavior of the bubbly flow is still not well understood owing to the complexity of gas–liquid interactions and coupling between the phases...

The energy storage industry has made great progress in developing technology, standards, and market policies and is poised to offer solutions to rapidly changing energy markets. Currently, energy storage as a solution is more inhibited by project financing than by the technology itself. High capital costs and a lack of financing options and incenti...

Access to accurate power production prediction of a wind turbine in future hours enables operators to detect possible underperformance and anomalies in advance. This may enable more proactive and strategic operations optimization. This study examines common Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) data over a period of 20 months for 21 pitc...

Forecasting crop water demand is a critical part of any greenhouse’s day-to-day operations. This study focuses on a region located in Essex County, Ontario Canada where water demand is dominated by commercial greenhouse operations (78% of capacity). Development of complex and elaborate forecasting methods such as artificial neural networks (ANN) ca...

When buoyant vortex rings form, azimuthal disturbances occur on their surface. When the magnitude of the disturbance is sufficiently high, the ring will become turbulent. This paper establishes conditions for categorization of a buoyant vortex ring as laminar, transitional, or turbulent. The transition regime of enclosed-air buoyant vortex rings ri...

Renewable energy can address increasing energy demand while mitigating the effects of climate change. High capital costs and long payback periods require most projects to secure financing for a portion of the initial costs. Market-based incentives and policies can be credited with lowering development costs, but these come with uncertainties and ex...

Floating offshore wind farms (FOWF) with advanced adiabatic compressed air energy storage (AA-CAES) are thermodynamically scrutinized to evaluate if the compressed air is better stored underground or underwater. The corresponding energy efficiency is deduced based on an exergy analysis that details the exergy destruction of each system. The effects...

Significant heating demands are present in greenhouses to maintain suitable indoor conditions for crop growth. In an effort to implement clean energy technologies in an industry heavily reliant on natural gas, the potential of a large-scale solar collector system with seasonal thermal energy storage is explored. Both low and high-temperature boreho...

Wind Turbine power output prediction can prevent unexpected failure and financial loss, through the detection of anomalies in turbine performance in advance so operators can proactively address potential problems. This study examines common Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) data over a period of 20 months for 21 pitch regulated 2.3 M...

Variability exists amongst reported levelized costs of energy (LCOEs) for wind. Wind is unique from traditional energy sources in that the fuel is free, with the majority of costs determined by capital expenses. Power purchase agreements (PPAs) are critical to the success of a project, offering a guarantee of long-term revenue. Integral to negotiat...

Wind turbine power output monitoring can detect anomalies in turbine performance which have the potential to result in unexpected failure. This study examines common Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition data over a period of 20 months. It is common to have more than 150 signals acquired by Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition systems, and a...

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by providing non-fossil fuel energy sources is imminently necessary. The area of particular interest in this paper is the agricultural greenhouse industry. In these structures, significant heating demands are present, especially in cold climates, and are typically met by combusting fossil fuels. In an effort toward...

With climate change being the current most pressing environmental issue, clean energy projects are emerging with a focus on reducing our carbon footprint while meeting our energy demands. There are several intersecting challenges surrounding climate change, energy demand, and water scarcity. The movement towards a less carbon-intensive energy suppl...

In the Ontario greenhouse sector the misalignment of available solar radiation during the summer months and large heating demand during the winter months makes solar thermal collector systems an unviable option without some form of seasonal energy storage. Information obtained from Ontario greenhouse operators has shown that over 20% of annual natu...

A 2MWunderwater compressed air energy storage (UWCAES) system is studied using both conventional and advanced exergy analyses. The exergy efficiency of the proposed UWCAES system is found to be 53.6% under the real conditions. While the theoretical maximum under the unavoidable condition is 84.3%; showing a great potential for performance improveme...

Buoyancy battery underwater energy storage is an emerging area of research relating to the storage of energy generated by renewable resources such as offshore wind and solar. This paper presents an experimental analysis of a basic buoyancy system. Tests were performed on a container with minimal ambient fluid volume, as well as in a large offshore...

This paper presents an alternate method of underwater energy storage utilizing an object's inherent buoyancy as a means for storage known as buoyancy battery energy storage (BBES). Utilizing a simple pulley, reel and float mechanism, energy can be stored for an indefinite period of time. Governing equations of charge and discharge are defined throu...

The aerodynamic interaction of vertical axis wind turbines in several array configurations was studied by conducting a series of wind tunnel measurements. Four configurations of two- and three-turbine arrays were tested and their results were compared with that of the isolated reference case. Two pairs of counter-rotating and co-rotating vertical a...