Skip to content

Fix PF electrical accounting for Ohmic heating - #4664

Open
grmtrkngtn wants to merge 1 commit into
mainfrom
4419-bugpower-balance-for-power-plant-fails-by-the-amount-of-the-ohmic-heating
Open

grmtrkngtn wants to merge 1 commit into
mainfrom
4419-bugpower-balance-for-power-plant-fails-by-the-amount-of-the-ohmic-heating

Conversation

@grmtrkngtn

@grmtrkngtn grmtrkngtn commented Oct 8, 2026 •

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

Description

The PF electrical demand previously included only the power-supply loss associated with ohmic heating, while the ohmic power itself was still added to the plasma thermal balance. This caused the whole-plant power balance to gain an amount exactly equal to p_plasma_ohmic_mw.

The fix accounts for the full wall-plug power required to supply ohmic heating, while only the PF supply losses contribute to secondary heat.

See #4419

************************ Power balance for power plant *************************

IN
Fusion power (MW) (p_fusion_total_mw) 1.67020126538901764e+03 OP
Energy multiplication in blanket and shield (MW) (p_blkt_multiplication_mw) 2.47869045393520537e+02 OP
TOTAL (MW) (p_nuclear_total_mw) 1.91807031078253817e+03 OP

OUT
Net electric (MW) (p_plant_electric_net_mw) 3.50000000004303502e+02 OP
Heat rejected by main power conversion circuit (MW) (p_turbine_loss_mw) 1.36108730187131050e+03 OP
Heat rejected by other circuits (secondary heat) (MW) (p_plant_secondary_heat_mw) 2.06983008906924198e+02 OP
TOTAL (MW) (p_plant_out_mw) 1.91807031078253817e+03 OP
Power plant overall imbalance (MW) (p_plant_imbalance_mw) 0.00000000000000000e+00 OP


We can see the power imabalance is correct now

Checklist

I confirm that I have completed the following checks:

  • My changes follow the PROCESS style guide
  • I have justified any large differences in the regression tests caused by this pull request in the comments.
  • I have added new tests where appropriate for the changes I have made.
  • If I have had to change any existing unit or integration tests, I have justified this change in the pull request comments.
  • If I have made documentation changes, I have checked they render correctly.
  • I have added documentation for my change, if appropriate.

@grmtrkngtn
grmtrkngtn requested a review from a team as a code owner October 8, 2026 09:17
@grmtrkngtn
grmtrkngtn requested a review from a team October 8, 2026 09:17
@chris-ashe chris-ashe added Bug Something isnt working PF Coils labels Oct 8, 2026
@codecov-commenter

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 49.73%. Comparing base (e2d0521) to head (02f11a1).

Additional details and impacted files
@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##             main    #4664   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   49.73%   49.73%           
=======================================
  Files         151      151           
  Lines       30297    30297           
=======================================
  Hits        15069    15069           
  Misses      15228    15228           

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:
  • ❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.

Comment thread process/models/power.py
1.0e0 / self.data.pf_coil.etapsu - 1.0e0
# PF wall-plug power required for ohmic heating (MW)
wall_plug_ohmicmw = (
self.data.physics.p_plasma_ohmic_mw / self.data.pf_coil.etapsu

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I can be very misinformed, but why does electrical losses in the PF coil depend linearly on the plasma resistivity?

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

This term is intended to represent the power-supply loss associated with transferring the ohmic heating power to the plasma, rather than a resistive loss in the PF coils themselves.

Since the plasma ohmic heating is

P_ohmic = V_loop * I_p = I_p^2 * R_plasma ​

and therefore depends on the plasma resistance, a fixed power-supply efficiency gives a loss

P_ohmic * (1/η_psu − 1)

The PF coil/busbar losses are accounted for separately in pfpowermw.

@timothy-nunn timothy-nunn self-assigned this Oct 9, 2026
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

Bug Something isnt working PF Coils

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

🐛Power balance for power plant fails by the amount of the ohmic heating

5 participants