Link to the DRRC version

ABSTRACT

California agricultural irrigation consumes more than ten billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and has significant potential for contributing to a reduction of stress on the grid through demand response, permanent load shifting, and energy efficiency measures. To understand this potential, a scoping study was initiated for the purpose of determining the associated opportunities, potential, and adoption challenges in California agricultural irrigation.

The primary research for this study was conducted in two ways. First, data was gathered and parsed from published sources that shed light on where the best opportunities for load shifting and demand response lie within the agricultural irrigation sector. Secondly, a small limited survey was conducted as informal face-to-face interviews with several different California growers to get an idea of their ability and willingness to participate in permanent load shifting and/or demand response programs.

Analysis of the data obtained from published sources and the survey reveal demand response and permanent load shifting opportunities by growing region, irrigation source, irrigation method, grower size, and utility coverage. The study examines some solutions for demand response and permanent load shifting in agricultural irrigation, which include adequate irrigation system capacity, automatic controls, variable frequency drives, and the contribution from energy efficiency measures.

The study further examines the potential and challenges for grower acceptance of demand response and permanent load shifting in California agricultural irrigation. As part of the examination, the study considers to what extent permanent load shifting, which is already somewhat accepted within the agricultural sector, mitigates the need or benefit of demand response for agricultural irrigation. Recommendations for further study include studies on how to gain grower acceptance of demand response as well as other related studies such as conducting a more comprehensive survey of California growers.

The full CEC pdf document

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iP Solutions brought extensive knowledge of Embedded Linux DSP systems hardware and software to the Nevada Nanotech Systems (NNTS) project for explosive chemical and radiation threat detection and  analysis. The project, CScout, was targeted for shipping container security.

Previous experience with complex embedded control and data acquisition systems enabled iP Solutions to immediately begin contributing to this project.  The primary goal was to design both hardware and software for using an NNTS Molecular Properties Sensor (MPS) to collect, analyze and present explosive chemical vapor threat data.  Additionally, radiation spectrum data was to be collected and analyzed for any radiation threat components.  This system was to be controlled and results communicated remotely through a wireless interface, the Maritime Asset Tag Tracking System (MATTS).  Also, a hardwired network connection was to enable more extensive maintenance and engineering modes with web-based and terminal based interfaces.

The CScout system was successfully completed with impressive measurement results. This system will be used for demonstration of NNTS sensor capabilities to potential customers.

MPS Sensor

The NNTS CScout project was designed around requirements to stimulate and measure the output of various types of NNTS MPS sensor devices. The MPS devices typically contain one or more tiny specialized cantilevers for performing calorimetric, temperature and mass measurements. These cantilevers are tiny diving board like fingers that protrude from bulk silicon and are surrounded by air. These are considered MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems) or NEMS (nano electro mechanical systems) depending upon the dimensions involved.

 CScout System

At the core of the CScout system is an embedded Linux General Purpose Processor (GPP) platform with a slave Digital Signal Processor  (DSP).  This was implemented with a TI OMAPL137 which also includes other IP cores such as Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) masters (2) and Pulse-width Modulator PWM channels (6).  These cores were used to drive additional iP Solutions-designed circuitry for implementing the calorimetric, temperature and mass measurements.

Services Performed for NNTS

iP Solutions performed the following tasks for the Nevada Nanotech Systems CScout project:

• Hardware and Software specifications
• Evaluation of laboratory proto-type testing
• Design of new electronics
  • MPS piezoelectric cantilever stimulus and response at 10 microsecond per stimulus-measurement cycle (1 channel)
  • MPS cantilever resistor stimulus and response at 15 microsecond per stimulus-measurement cycle (12 channels)
  • SPI driver circuits (Linux and DSP)
  • Power system
  • Radiation sensor interface
  • MATTS wireless communications interface
  • Pump controller (2)
  • Fan controller (2)
  • Heater controllers (4)
  • Peltier controller (1)
  • Integration of OMAPL137 processor board
• Design, build and test Printed Circuit Boards (10)
• Design and write software
  • Boot loader configuration to mount USB root file system
  • Linux kernel enhancements
    • kernel SPIdev enhancements to handle non-standard chip select scheme
    • USB drive implementation
  • Linux Drivers
    • SPI
    • PWM
    • General-purpose OMAP register access
    • Modified / enhanced an existing General Purpose I/O (GPIO) driver
  • Linux daemons (services)
    • State machine central controller
    • Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) / PWM service provides access to and controls the heaters (4) and pumps (2) of the CScout.  Also, the daemon monitors ambient temperature and humidity.
    • MATTS service, which features the ability to process requests from the Maritime Asset Tracking System.  The MATTS service continually monitors and parses requests, and then based on specific requests passes control to user-designated and user-designed scripts for appropriate processing.
  • Linux utilities: some utilities are low-level “wrappers” for accessing the drivers.  Other utilities, built on the lower-level utilities, provide higher-level functionality.
  • DSP drivers
    • DSP SPI driver (high speed)
    • Precise timing control
  • Protocol drivers, which consist of a pair of executables, one of which operates in the OAMP L137 GPP and one that operates in the DSP.  The GPP executables provide the interface to the protocol drivers, while the DSP executables directly interface to the CScout hardware to drive and acquire data from an MPS.
  • Radiation detection and analysis
  • Web server and web application implemented with Cherry Pi for maintenance and engineering interface.
  • Self-test
• Test protocols for testing drivers and controllers written in both Python, Bash and C code (many)
• Production protocols for MPS (many variations) written in C code
  • Calorimetric (up to 12 channels)
    • Cantilever resistor current sweep
    • Cantilever resistor power sweep
    • Cantilever resistor voltage sweep
    • Cantilever resistance measurement
    • Cantilever voltage measurement
    • Cantilever resistor Power measurement
    • Peltier heating/cooling control
    • Pump control
    • Fan control
    • Heater control
  • Piezoelectric cantilever (many variations)
    • Frequency sweep
    • Auto-null
    • Auto-peak detection
    • Integrate with resistor measurements
    • Peltier heating/cooling control
    • Pump control
    • Fan control
    • Heater control
  • Implement GIT software revision control system
• Build and test complete systems and software protocols(10)
• Training
• Documentation
• Final report

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The Power-point Presentation

Download (PPTX, 1.24MB)

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Link to Final Report at the DRRC

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Crop irrigation requirements vary in time with weather and soil conditions. Precision
irrigation provides a means for evaluating a crop’s water requirements and a means for
applying the right amount at the right time. Often in the literature, precision irrigation is referred to as irrigation scheduling: That is scheduling based on environmental data, whether that data comes from local field sensors or from more global sources such as regional meteorological information.

Applying precision irrigation practices offers significant potential for saving water,
energy, and money. Further, it has the potential to increases crop yield. There is an
additional positive environmental impact from precision irrigation in that farm runoff, a major source of water pollution, can be reduced.

While precision irrigation has value for all types of irrigation in any region of the world, this paper focuses on the irrigation of California agriculture, which uses nearly 80% of the state’s water and more than ten billion Kilowatt hours of electricity annually. That is enough electricity to power one million typical American households each year. The approximate power plant capacity required to power California irrigation through the months of May through October is 2500 MW, which is equivalent to 250 Min-Nuke power plants running at an average of 10MW each. The carbon footprint associated
with the power is approximately six million metric tons of CO² per year.

See full paper…

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