Help Request: Example or Tutorial for Building an Easy SOEC Module with IDAES and Issue Report for SOC_PID_Control Example

[Hanli131]

Hi everyone,

I would like to ask for help regarding two topics related to IDAES:

1. Tutorial or Example for Using the Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) Module.

I am trying to build a flowsheet that includes a SOEC.I have studied the source code in idaes.models_extra.power_generation.unit_models.soc_submodels (author = "Douglas Allan"), including SolidOxideCell, SolidOxideModuleSimple, PorousConductiveSlab, and other submodels. However, I am still uncertain about how to properly set up a SOEC module using SolidOxideModuleSimple, especially given the number of parameters and required input variables. Could anyone familiar with this part of IDAES share a simple example or a tutorial on how to set up an SOEC module? It would be extremely helpful. Thank you very much in advance!

2. Issue Report: SOC-PID Control Tutorial

While searching for references, I found the tutorial docs/power_gen/solid_oxide_cell/soc_pid_control_doc.ipynb in the IDAES Examples.
However, when I try to run cell [15] in Jupyter Notebook, I encounter the following error:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ApplicationError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[15], line 2
      1 idaeslog.solver_log.tee = True
----> 2 results = petsc.petsc_dae_by_time_element(
      3     m,
      4     time=m.fs.time,
      5     keepfiles=True,
      6     symbolic_solver_labels=True,
      7     ts_options={
      8         "--ts_type": "beuler",
      9         "--ts_dt": 0.1,
     10         "--ts_rtol": 1e-3,
     11         # "--ts_adapt_clip":"0.001,3600",
     12         # "--ksp_monitor":"",
     13         "--ts_adapt_dt_min": 1e-3,
     14         "--ts_adapt_dt_max": 3600,
     15         "--snes_type": "newtontr",
     16         # "--ts_max_reject": 200,
     17         # "--snes_monitor":"",
     18         "--ts_monitor": "",
     19         "--ts_save_trajectory": 1,
     20         "--ts_trajectory_type": "visualization",
     21         "--ts_max_snes_failures": 25,
     22         # "--show_cl":"",
     23         "-snes_max_it": 50,
     24         "-snes_rtol": 0,
     25         "-snes_stol": 0,
     26         "-snes_atol": 1e-6,
     27     },
     28     skip_initial=False,
     29     initial_solver="ipopt",
     30     initial_solver_options={
     31         "constr_viol_tol": 1e-8,
     32         "nlp_scaling_method": "user-scaling",
     33         "linear_solver": "ma57",
     34         "OF_ma57_automatic_scaling": "yes",
     35         "max_iter": 300,
     36         "tol": 1e-8,
     37         "halt_on_ampl_error": "no",
     38     },
     39 )
     40 for result in results.results:
     41     pyo.assert_optimal_termination(result)

File /opt/miniconda3/envs/idaesenv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/idaes/core/solvers/petsc.py:640, in petsc_dae_by_time_element(m, time, timevar, initial_constraints, initial_variables, detect_initial, skip_initial, initial_solver, initial_solver_options, ts_options, keepfiles, symbolic_solver_labels, between, interpolate, calculate_derivatives, previous_trajectory, representative_time, snes_options)
    638 _copy_time(time_vars, tprev, t)
    639 with idaeslog.solver_log(solve_log, idaeslog.INFO) as slc:
--> 640     res = solver_dae.solve(
    641         t_block,
    642         tee=slc.tee,
    643         keepfiles=keepfiles,
    644         symbolic_solver_labels=symbolic_solver_labels,
    645         export_nonlinear_variables=differential_vars,
    646         options={"--ts_init_time": tprev, "--ts_max_time": t},
    647     )
    648 if save_trajectory:
    649     tj_prev = tj

File /opt/miniconda3/envs/idaesenv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/pyomo/opt/base/solvers.py:628, in OptSolver.solve(self, *args, **kwds)
    626     elif hasattr(_status, 'log') and _status.log:
    627         logger.error("Solver log:\n" + str(_status.log))
--> 628     raise ApplicationError("Solver (%s) did not exit normally" % self.name)
    629 solve_completion_time = time.time()
    630 if self._report_timing:

ApplicationError: Solver (asl) did not exit normally

It seems that the tutorial cannot run successfully as provided. Could someone please test it to confirm if the example is currently working or if there are known issues?

Thanks again for your suppor!

[dallan-keylogic]

1. Check out this test for how to set up a cell model. The module-level model is a wrapper for the cell model that scales its outputs by the number of cells and allows translation from the FTPx state variables used inside the model to another set of state variables. Check out Section 2.1.6 of this report for how some of the values of these parameters were chosen.
2. The examples are running fine in our testing suite. Did you install PETSc through this additional step? Also, are you using a Mac? There are issues with PETSc on Macs. See Encountering error while running pytest on an M2 chip Mac #1552 and PETSc errors on macOS 15.1 #1536.

[Hanli131]

Thank you for your reply. I was previously running the example on a Mac, so the issue might have been caused by the macOS system.