| Fellowship University of Alberta | Award | 2020-01-01 | Li, R. |
| Highly Cited Researcher University of Alberta | Award | 2019-12-31 | Li, R. |
| A New Modular SPWM Strategy for Parallel Isolated Matrix Rectifiers to Improve Current Quality University of Alberta | Publication | 2020-10-30 | Fanxiu Fang, Li, Y., Li, R. |
| An Improved SVM Strategy to Reduce DC Current Ripple for AC-DC Matrix Converter University of Alberta | Publication | 2020-06-25 | Fanxiu Fang, Li, R. |
| CFD MODELING OF THE NEAR-FIELD POLLUTANT DISPERSION IN URBAN SETTINGS: COMBINED EFFECTS OF THE SOURCE LOCATION AND PLANAR HETEROGENEITIESM.R. Kavian Nezhad, C.F. Lange, B.A. Fleck, "CFD MODELING OF THE NEAR-FIELD POLLUTANT DISPERSION IN URBAN SETTINGS: COMBINED EFFECTS OF THE SOURCE LOCATION AND PLANAR HETEROGENEITIES", CSME 2022, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (ON June 5-8), Abstract.
| Publication | 2022-04-28 | Mohammad Reza Kavian Nezhad, Brian Fleck, Carlos Lange |
| Evaluating the Validity of CFD Model of Dispersion in a Complex Urban Geometry Using Two Sets of Experimental MeasurementsM.R. Kavian Nezhad, C.F. Lange, B.A. Fleck, "Evaluating the Validity of CFD Model of Dispersion in a Complex Urban Geometry Using Two Sets of Experimental Measurements", ICCFD 2022: 16 International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Tokyo, Japan, January 4-6, 2022.
| Publication | 2022-01-03 | Mohammad Reza Kavian Nezhad, Carlos Lange, Brian Fleck |
| PWM and Control Strategies for AC-DC Matrix Converters | Publication | 2021-01-01 | Fanxiu Fang |
| Computational Fluid Dynamics Validation of Rooftop Wind Regime in Complex Urban Environment | Publication | 2020-01-01 | Sarah Mattar |
| Deep Electrification and Renewable Energy in a Remote Canadian CommunityThis study examines high-penetration of renewable energy options for Fort Chipewyan (an off-grid community in northern Alberta, Canada). This analysis goes beyond modelling hybrid diesel-renewable electricity supply, to also consider deep electrification scenarios that not only aim to electrify the community’s heating and transportation energy demands, which can almost triple the average 35 MWh/day electricity load in a highly seasonal manner. HOMER Pro software was used to create seven different electricity use scenarios, and the outcomes were compared to optimize hybrid renewable energy technologies including solar PV, wind turbines, batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells to meet forecast electricity demand. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to verify the effects of factors such as solar radiation, wind speed, the capital cost of solar PV and wind turbines, diesel prices, and CO2 penalty cost on the cost of electricity (COE). | Publication | 2023-05-31 | Tazrin Jahan Priyanka |
| Improving the value of wind energy through geographic diversity of wind farmsWind farms are often concentrated geographically as they are cited in areas with
strong resources. While this maximizes energy generation, it can decrease the value of
that energy, particularly as the relative amount of wind increases in the overall system.
Wind energy is growing rapidly in Alberta, and this research evaluates the potential to
increase the value of the energy for new wind farms by building them in regions with
lower annual wind speeds but less correlation to the rest of the fleet to capture higher
market prices. The research identifies a trend between the deviation of the location’s
potential generation output from the fleet’s average and the average annual energy
revenue for a wind farm at that location based on data from existing wind farms. This
trend is applied to predict the average annual energy revenue, payback periods, and
internal rate of return for twelve candidate wind farm sites in the northern portion of
the province. | Publication | 2023-02-01 | Taylor Pawlenchuk |
| Market Impacts of Geographic Dispersion of Wind Energy in AlbertaThis thesis presents a methodology to simulate the energy production from hypothetical wind farms in Alberta in order to examine potential future market impacts of a geographically dispersed wind fleet in Alberta. The wind farms’ output are simulated using the Canadian Wind Atlas (CWA) Modelled Historical data (HMD), a publicly available hourly Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model and calibrated to historic output from existing wind farms in the province to determine if the data available from the CWA (hourly wind speeds, temperature, and air density), were sufficient to simulate new wind farms in Alberta. A generic loss coefficient was empirically calculated to estimate power output from a wind farm compared to the manufacturer’s power curve at simulated wind speeds from the CWA. By comparing modelled wind farm performance to historical market data from wind farms operating in Alberta, it was found that the CWA tends to underestimate wind speeds from 7:00 am until noon for the spring months, as well as misrepresenting wind speeds for the southwest region of the province (near communities with existing wind farms in Pincher Creek and Fort Macleod). Outside of the southwest of the province, the simulated wind farm’s annual energy production, using the data from the CWA HMD, were within a percentage error between 1% to 10% for wind farms that operated over the same timeframe. By applying this methodology to regions of the province without existing wind farms, the output of new hypothetical wind farms was created in different locations in Alberta. The output of hypothetical wind farms was allows for market impacts simulations of new wind farms in Alberta using the Aurora market model from Energy Exemplar. Preliminary results from Aurora’s model simulation shows that increases in wind energy development will lower market prices during periods of high wind as would be expected. This work enables future analysis examining the potential market changes of a more geographically diverse wind fleet in the province. | Publication | 2020-09-29 | Natalia Vergara Bonilla |
| A New Space Vector Modulation Strategy to Enhance AC Current Quality of Isolated DC-AC Matrix Converter University of Alberta | Publication | 2021-02-03 | Fanxiu Fang, Hao Tian, Li, R. |
| A numerical study of bio-inspired wingtip modifications of modern wind turbinesIn this study, we propose an efficient turbine retrofit based on the use of bio-inspired winglets to increase the power production of a wind turbine. To assess the capability of the modified wingtips, we perform the steady-state Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes simulations of a DTU 10 MW wind turbine using ANSYS Fluent. The addition of this novel retrofit, inspired by the world’s heaviest soaring bird, the Andean condor, aims to increase the power output of a wind turbine while requiring only a modest capital investment. The results indicate that the addition of this retrofit leads to an increase of 9.69% in power production (average of four cases of 8, 9, 10, and 11 m/s). In addition to examining power production, the study also investigates the load distribution on the blade and the flow structures at the blade tip. The results illustrate that the winglets significantly affect the wingtip’s vortical structures, leading to an overall increase of 8.5 % in the axial loading along the span. We also show that the presence of the winglet affects the velocity recovery at the wake, leading to a more compact velocity recovery in the wake. | Publication | 2024-02-02 | Khashayar RahnamayBahambary, Mohammad Reza Kavian Nezhad, "Alexandra Komrakova", Brian Fleck |
| An Improved SVM Strategy to Reduce DC Current Ripple for AC-DC Matrix Converter University of Alberta | Publication | 2020-10-20 | Fanxiu Fang, Hao Tian, Li, R. |
| Calibrating Canadian Wind Atlas Data to Historic Market PerformanceExamining historic market data from wind farms in Albert and comparing it to the Canadian Wind Atlas. Developing dynamic loss coefficient in order to use the data to develop typical meteorological year output for geographic dispersion modelling. University of Alberta | Publication | 2020-08-01 | Natalia Vergara Bonilla, Weis, T., Leach, A., Brian Fleck |
| Effects of Inflow Parameters and Disk Thickness on an Actuator Disk inside the Neutral Atmospheric Boundary LayerAn accurate choice of the inflow parameters has been shown to affect the CFD results significantly. In this study, the actuator disk method (AD) is used to investigate the effects of the widely used inflow formulations, the logarithmic and power-law formulations, in the neutral atmospheric boundary layer simulations. Based on the one-dimensional momentum theory, the AD model is a rapid method that replaces the turbine with a permeable disk and is among the most used methods in the literature. The results of the k-ω
AD simulation indicated that in spite of the logarithmic method’s widespread use, the power law formulation gives a better description of the velocity field. Furthermore, an actuator disk thickness study also showed that given the effect of actuator disk thickness on the rate of convergence, more attention should be dedicated towards finding a suitable disk thickness value. The combination of an optimized mesh and a suitable choice of AD thickness can help with the rate of convergence which in turn shortens the simulation’s run time. | Publication | 2022-10-05 | Khashayar RahnamayBahambary, Brian Fleck |
| Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control for AC-DC Matrix Converter with Virtual Space Vectors University of Alberta | Publication | 2019-08-26 | Fanxiu Fang, Hao Tian, Li, R. |
| Framework for design and optimization of a retrofitted light industrial space with a renewable energy-assisted hydroponics facility in a rural northern canadian communityThe purpose of this study is to develop a design framework for retrofitting a light industrial building with a hybrid renewable energy-assisted hydroponics farming system for production of fresh food in rural north Canadian communities. This design protocol is targeted at facilities in rural areas of northern Canada, which could benefit from better access to fresh food, especially given the harsh climate as well as the long and limited transport routes. The process includes 1) a review of the existing building; 2) estimation of design loads for system sizing, such as temperature and humidity control, adequate lighting, airborne carbon, and water; 3) multi-objective genetic algorithm optimization of the hybrid renewable energy system for minimal operating cost and emissions; and 4) comparison of costs and greenhouse (GHG) emissions of the proposed farming operation with the traditional food supply chain. To demonstrate the proposed methodology, a case study building in a rural community in Alberta, Canada was evaluated for retrofit. The results showed that the GHG emissions generated from local hydroponic lettuce production, aided by a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), are three times greater than those emitted by transporting an equivalent quantity of food from southern California, USA. On the other hand, the life cycle cost showed that the cost to produce lettuce from the case study facility is comparable to the price of lettuce available from traditional import, which shows a promising potential to provide fresh and cost-competitive food in the community, among other qualitative benefits gained from this empowering opportunity. University of Alberta | Publication | 2021-05-16 | "Artur Udovichchenko", Brian Fleck, Weis, T., Zhong, L. |
| Mapping The Evolution of Canada’s Wind Energy FleetWind energy has grown steadily in Canada since the early 2000s, over which time there has been significant technology change. This work examines the changes in wind farm configurations and sizes across the country during the past 20 years. University of Alberta | Publication | 2022-07-01 | William Noel, Weis, T., Leach, A., Brian Fleck |
| Market impacts of geographically dispersed wind farms in AlbertaSimulating wind energy developments in Northern Alberta to examine the potential market benefits of wind farm operations in regions with less correlated weather regimes than historical locations. University of Alberta | Publication | 2022-04-30 | Natalia Vergara Bonilla, Weis, T., Leach, A., Brian Fleck |
| Modelling wind-hydrogen storage in Alberta’s electricity marketExamining the opportunity, constraints, performance and economic requirements for green hydrogen system viability in Alberta’s electricity market. Economic viability will depend on exogenous variables including carbon pricing, natural gas futures, as well as forecasts for renewable curtailment or arbitrage opportunities in Alberta’s electricity market under varying renewable energy fleet scenarios. University of Alberta | Publication | 2021-05-01 | William Noel, Weis, T., Leach, A., Brian Fleck |
| Modified Accuracy of RANS Modeling of Urban Pollutant Flow within Generic Building Clusters Using a High-Quality Full-Scale Dispersion DatasetTo improve the reliability of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models of
atmospheric wind flow over complex terrains, a re-calibration study is conducted to
optimize the standard k-e model. Given the stochastic nature of turbulence closure
coefficients, an optimization framework is adopted to identify ranges for them to
achieve the most reliable and accurate predictions. A robust objective function is
defined that incorporates five validation metrics. The coefficients are trained using high-quality measurements of full-scale tracer experiments in a mock urban arrangement simulating a dense building array. Besides exploiting the empirical correlation between coefficients in the atmospheric
surface layer, an exhaustive sensitivity study is also conducted to investigate the
possibility of reducing the computational load. | Publication | 2023-04-17 | Mohammad Reza Kavian Nezhad, Khashayar RahnamayBahambary, Carlos Lange, Brian Fleck |
| Performance Evaluation of the RANS Models in Predicting the Pollutant Concentration Field within a Compact Urban Setting: Effects of the Source Location and Turbulent Schmidt NumberComputational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to accurately model and predict the dispersion of a passive scalar in the atmospheric wind flow field within an urban setting. The Mock Urban Setting Tests (MUST) experiment was recreated in this work to test and evaluate various modeling settings and to form a framework for the reliable representation of dispersion flow in compact urban geometries. The performance of three widely suggested closure models of standard k−ε, RNG k−ε, and SST k−ω is assessed by calculating and interpreting the statistical performance metrics. This work demonstrates that the overprediction of the turbulent kinetic energy by the standard k−ε counteracts the general underpredictions by RANS in geometries with building complexes. | Publication | 2022-06-23 | Mohammad Reza Kavian Nezhad, Carlos Lange, Brian Fleck |
| SVM Strategy for Mitigating Low Order Harmonics in Isolated AC-DC Matrix Converter University of Alberta | Publication | 2020-06-08 | Fanxiu Fang, Hao Tian, Li, R. |
| Using Variable Speed Diesel Generators to Increase Renewable Energy Penetration in the YukonThis study examines the use of variable speed diesel gensets to increase the levels of wind and solar penetration in five case study communities in the Yukon and NWT. University of Alberta | Publication | 2023-05-31 | "Joan Torrents", "Simon Geoffroy-Gagnon", "Michael Ross", Weis, T., Brian Fleck |
| Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link Reivew University of Alberta | Publication | 2021-03-31 | Weis, T., Julia Zonneveld |
| Visiting Student - Joan TorrentsJoan has been working in collaboration with the University of Yukon on variable speed diesel generators to increase the penetration levels of renewable energy in remote communities in the Yukon and NWT. University of Alberta | Activity | 2023-05-31 | Weis, T. |
| Visiting student - Sebastian Chacon MoranSebastian Chacon Moran is working on the opportunities for hydrogen use from excess solar supply in remote communities using Fort Chipewyan's 2.6 MW solar farm as a case study. University of Alberta | Activity | 2023-05-05 | Weis, T. |
