TPS Review Kwang

Advanced Review
Steam power plant configuration,

design, and control
Xiao Wu,1 Jiong Shen,1 Yiguo Li1 and Kwang Y. Lee2∗
This article provides an overview of fossil-fuel power plant (FFPP) configura-

tion, design and especially, the control technology, both the conventional and the
advanced technologies. First, a brief introduction of FFPP fundamentals and con-
figurations are presented, followed by the description of conventional PID-based
control system in the FFPPs and its short-comings. As the major part of this writing,
different advanced control strategies and applications are reported, with their sig-
nificant features outlined and discussed. These new technologies are collected from
both the academic studies and industrial practices, which can improve the perfor-
mance of the FFPP control system for more economic and safe plant operation.
The final section presents a view of the next generation FFPP control technologies,
emphasizing potential business and research opportunities. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons,
Ltd.
How to cite this article:

WIREs Energy Environ 2015. doi: 10.1002/wene.161
INTRODUCTION will not change in a foreseeable future. For this reason,

developing and operating the FFPPs according to the
F ossil fuelled power plant (FFPP) refers to a group
of power generation devices that convert the chem-
ical energy stored in the fossil fuel such as coal, gas,
most suitable available technologies are very impor-
tant and should be the most effective and direct way
to save energy and reduce the pollution.
oil into thermal energy, mechanical energy and finally
The history of FFPP can be traced back to the late
electrical energy. In the past hundred years, FFPPs are
19th century, the simple D.C. generators were coupled
the most widely used facilities in the power industry
to coal-fired, reciprocating piston steam engines, pro-
and play a fundamental role in social production and
ducing electricity primarily for district lighting. These
life. According to the 2013 Key World Energy Statis-
initial plants typically operated at low temperature
tics published by the International Energy Agency
and pressure conditions (150∘ C, 0.9 Mpa) and could
(IEA), in 2011, the annual generation of electric-
only generate 30 kw electricity. Through a century’s
ity from all types of sources was 22,126 TWh and
technological developments, power plants have now
FFPPs provided 15,054 TWh, accounted for 68% of
been evolved into a highly complex system that can
the total electricity generation. Although the rapid
operate at supercritical conditions of 28.5 Mpa and
increase of global energy crisis, combined with the
concerns about environment issues has led to an exten- 600∘ C, generating 1300 MW of electricity with much
sive promotion of nuclear and renewable energy, for higher efficiency. Although there are many variations
the most parts of the world, the trend of conven- in power plant configuration and design, the basic
tional fossil-fuel-dominated electric power generation working principle of the FFPPs keeps the same: fossil
fuel is combusted, generating high pressure and tem-
perature steam, which is then expanded to rotate a tur-
∗ Correspondence to: kwang_y_lee@baylor.edu bine, and drives the generator to produce electricity.1
1 Key Laboratory of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control For the FFPP, the main task of the control
of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Environment,
Southeast University, Nanjing, China
system is to regulate the electrical power output
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Baylor Uni- to meet the demand of the grid while maintain-
versity, Waco, TX, USA ing the main thermal dynamical variables such as
Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest superheater/reheater steam temperature, throttle pres-
for this article. sure, furnace pressure, drum water level, within
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/wene
given tolerances to keep the power plant operating information reported here are collected from both aca-
safely. Generally, such an objective is achieved via demic researches and engineering practices.
the multi-loop proportional-integral-derivative (PID) A brief introduction of FFPP fundamentals and
based controllers. The approach has been proven to configurations are presented first, followed by the
be highly reliable and can attain a satisfactory per- description of conventional PID-based control system
formance under normal operation maintained at base in the FFPPs and the associated problems. As a
load, where plant characteristics become almost con- major part of this writing, different advanced control
stant. strategies and applications are reported, with their
However, during the past few decades, power significant features outlined and discussed. The final
industry has undergone some significant changes, section presents a view of the next generation FFPP
and as the primary devices of power production, control technologies, emphasizing potential business
FFPPs have been endowed with higher operational and research opportunities.
requirements:
1. The growth of electric power demand increases

PLANT CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN
the magnitude of the cyclic variation of the grid The essence of power production process in all types of
load, and the renewable sources, such as wind, the FFPPs is energy conversion. In the vast majority of
solar and hydro power, are severely influenced the FFPPs worldwide, water/steam is commonly used
by the season and the weather condition; thus, as the working fluid, which is alternately vaporized
the FFPPs have to participate in the grid power and condensed in a closed circuit following a thermal
regulation frequently and respond to the load dynamic cycle. Within this cycle, the chemical energy
demand variation quickly within a wide oper- of the fossil fuel is transformed into steam thermal
ation range. energy by the boiler, then it is transformed into
2. The privatization and deregulation of the rotational mechanical energy by the turbine, and
electricity industry has changed the power gen- finally it is transformed into electric energy by the
eration business from a cost-plus, monopoly generator. This kind of FFPPs is also called steam
environment with an obligation to serve, to power plant, and depending on the operating steam
a competitive environment for the sale of its pressure, it can be classified into subcritical plants and
product. For this reason, power plants are supercritical plants.
increasing in size and becoming more complex
in order to achieve high efficiency and the scale Subcritical Steam Plant
of economy. Furthermore, the aforementioned
In subcritical power plants, the steam parame-
thermal parameters should be more stringently
ters never exceed the critical point: 22.115 Mpa,
controlled so that the plant can operate in an
374.12∘ C. Because under this critical point, liquid
optimal mode at all times.
water must go through a vaporization stage to become
steam; in most of the large-scale subcritical plants,
Therefore, control problems to deal with issues, drums are typically utilized to separate the steam out
such as nonlinearity over a wide operation range, large of the boilers.
inertial and time varying behavior, and strong cou- Figure 1 provides a simplified illustration of a
pling among the multitude of variables, become severe coal-fired subcritical power plant, which is comprised
in the FFPPs. Consequently, the conventional PI/PID of two basic systems: the fuel/air-flue gas system and
based controllers are no longer sufficient in meeting the water-steam system.2–4
performance specifications, even if they are well tuned The fuel/air-flue gas system is also called the fire-
at a given load level. On the other hand, with the help side of the plant. In this system, the raw coal is trans-
of modern computer and instrumentation techniques, ported to the coal hopper by the conveyor and enters
utilizing Distributed Control System (DCS) is now the the pulverizing mill; where grinding and crushing take
routine rather than the exception, which makes the place. The qualified (smaller and lighter) coal parti-
implementation of advanced controllers possible in cles are then separated and entrained in the air flow,
the FFPPs. The primary purpose of this writing is to and carried into the burner. Finally, the combustion
present an updated, representative snapshot of vari- occurs in the furnace, generating high temperature
ous control strategies that are being applied to the (above 1000∘ C) flue gases. The air needed for com-
FFPPs and describe how they can help in improving bustion is delivered to the furnace and mill by the
the quality and performance of plant operation. The forced draught fans and an air preheater is installed in

WIREs Energy and Environment Steam power plant configuration, design, and control
17 19 21
22
14
1 23
5 6 9 10
25
15 27
26
8 11
24
12 13 16 18 20
2 7
Key
1. Cooling tower 8. Condenser 15. Coal hopper 22. Air intake
2. Cooling water pump 9. Intermediate pressure turbine 16. Pulverized fuel mill 23. Economizer
3 3. Pylon (termination tower) 10. Steam governor 17. Boiler drum 24. Air preheater
4 4. Unit transformer 11. High pressure turbine 18. Ash hopper 25. Precipitator
5. Generator 12. Deaerator 19. Superheater 26. Induced draught fan
6. Low pressure turbine 13. Feed heater 20. Forced draught fan 27. Chimney stack
7. Boiler feed pump 14. Coal conveyor 21. Reheater
FIGURE 1 | Simplified coal-fired subcritical power plant (Picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_power_station#Boiler_furnace_

and_steam_drum).
the path to warm the air being fed utilizing the heat through the chimney. The falling slags and ashes are
remaining in the exhaust gases leaving the furnace, collected in the ash hopper and delivered to the ash
through which the efficiency of the combustion can be system of the plant.2–4
improved. The objective of this process is converting Water-steam system is also referred to as the
the chemical energy in the fuel into the thermal energy waterside of the plant, which operates following the
in the flue gases. The flue gases in the furnace trans- Rankine cycle. The procedure within this system
fer the heat to the water wall by radiation and then begins with the feedwater being drawn from the con-
flow through multiple stages of superheaters, which denser and delivered to the boiler by the feed pumps.
are suspended on the horizontal passage at the top To improve the plant efficiency, a series of low and
of the furnace. Depending on the installed positions, high pressure feed heaters and an economizer are uti-
some superheaters are radiant type, which absorb heat lized to heat the feedwater with the steam bled from
by radiation; others are convection type, absorbing the turbine and the remaining heat of the flue gases.
heat from fluid; some are a combination of the two The deaerator is also installed in this path to remove
types. Through either type, the extreme heat in the the dissolved gases in the feedwater by vigorously boil-
flue gases is transfered to the superheater piping and ing and agitating it. The drum supplies the feedwater
the steam within. After leaving the superheater, the flue to the waterwall of the furnace to absorb the radiation
gases pass over reheater, economizer and air preheater, heat and separate the resulting saturated steam from
where almost all of their remaining heat is extracted the incoming saturated feedwater. The steam is then
to reheat the steam or prewarm the feed-water and further heated through multiple stages of superheaters
feed-air. The induced draught fans work in conjunc- to reach higher temperature and pressure. Finally, the
tion with the forced draught fans, then pull the flue steam expands along the turbines and rotates them
gases into the precipitator, and finally out of the boiler to a given high speed (3000/3600 rpm), which then

Valve
Steam turbine Steam turbine
Generator
Attemperator
Main steam
valve Cooling water
Flue gas
reture
desulpherization Reheater
Condenser
(FGD) unit Reheat stop
Boiler
valve
Condensate Condenser
Superheater
pump cooling water Cooling tower
pump
Carbon Feed Feed water

capture water heater
pump
Feed water Feed water Deaerator

heater booster pump
FIGURE 2 | Simplified supercritical power plant (Picture from

http://www.flowserve.com/Industries/Power-Generation/Conventional-Steam/Flowserve-Products-Used-in-Supercritical-Units,en_US).
drive a generator to produce electricity. Usually, there reliability and low technical risk. However, the
are multiple stages of turbines, and for a higher plant supercritical/ultra-supercritical plant is now greatly
efficiency, after the expansion in the high pressure promoted, because operating the plant at higher
turbine, the steam is extracted and reheated in the temperature and pressure can increase its efficiency,
boiler, and then delivered to the medium and low pres- potentially lowering the amount of fossil fuel con-
sure turbines. The saturated steam leaving the low sumed and the emissions generated.
pressure turbine is condensed back into liquid in the Currently, there are more than 600 supercritical
condenser.2–4 and ultra-supercritical power plants with total capac-
ity above 400 GW in the world (status 2010, Figure 3).
Supercritical Steam Plant These supercritical plants can achieve efficiencies of
more than 42%, compared with subcritical plants’
In contrast to the subcritical plant, supercritical plant
33%–39%. According to the USA DOE power gener-
is another type of steam plant, where the steam
ation initiative: Vision 21, by the year 2020, the steam
generator operates at pressure greater than the critical
in the ultra-supercritical power plants is expected to
point, 22.115 Mpa. Because above such a pressure, the
reach 760∘ C and 38.5 Mpa, which will enhance the
physical turbulence that characterizes boiling ceases
plant efficiency to more than 50%.
to occur, and instead, the liquid water immediately
In spite of the great advantages of the super-
becomes steam once is heated above the critical
critical plants, there are still barriers for building this
temperature (374.12∘ C). Therefore, the drum used in
type of the plant: the high thermal stresses and fatigue
the subcritical plant, where the evaporation separation
cracking in the critical sections of the plants as well as
process occurs can be completely eliminated, and the
the resulting lower reliability and higher maintenance
feedwater circulates only once in the furnace in each
costs. Thus an identifying, evaluating, and qualifying
cycle (Figure 2).2 For this reason, the ‘once through
potential alloy material is the major challenge for the
steam generator’ is designed and employed in all
successful implementation of supercritical technology.
supercritical plant.4
Current Status of the Steam Power Plant CLASSICAL CONTROL OF THE FFPP
The subcritical plant is still expected to remain As stated previously, the FFPPs, especially the steam
the main choice in some countries due to its sim- power plants, are complex, multivariable, and interac-
plicity in operation and control, belief in higher tive processes, thus a well-designed control system is

800
700
600
Capacity (GW)
500
400
300
200
100
0
Australia
Germany
Japan
Korea
Russia
South
Africa
United
Kingdom
2010
2012
2014
2010
2012
2014
2010
2012
2014
China India United States
Ultra-supercritical Supercritical Subcritical
FIGURE 3 | Capacity of supercritical and ultra-supercritical plant in major countries (refers to capacity in 2010 unless specified otherwise, Picture
from http://www.iea.org).
required in the plants to ensure the correct operation For the FFPP, power output and throttle pres-
of the entire process, i.e., rapidly following the grid sure are the two most important variables. Exter-
load demand and controlling relevant process vari- nally, the power output reflects a balance between the
ables such as: throttle pressure, superheater/reheater plant’s power generation and grid’s power demand;
steam temperature, furnace pressure, drum water level internally, the throttle pressure naturally represents a
(subcritical plant), etc., so that high efficiency, durabil- balance between the boiler’s energy supply and tur-
ity and safety can be attained in the plant. bine’s energy need. The dominant behavior of the unit
The boiler-turbine unit control schemes have is governed through the power and pressure control
gone through several decades of evolution and, typ- loops. Therefore, the central task of the CCS is to reg-
ically, a cascade of PI/PID controllers based on ulate the power output to meet the demand of the
single-input single-output control loops is designed grid while maintaining the throttle pressure within a
in the plant to fulfill such tasks.6,7 The remain- given tolerance. Evolved from multiple single-input
der of this section will focus mainly on the con- single-output control loop (decentralized) configura-
ventional boiler-turbine coordinated control system tions based on PID control algorithms, currently, there
(CCS), steam temperature control system, combus- are two possible modes for coordinated control: coor-
tion control system, and feedwater control system, in dinated boiler-following (BF) mode and coordinated
which the respective thermal dynamic variables are turbine-following (TF) mode.1,5,7,8
controlled separately. Historically, boiler following schemes were
the first to be used.9 In boiler following mode, the
Boiler-Turbine Coordinated Control System boiler awaits the actions of the turbine to match
Current plant or unit control strategies allow gener- the requested generation. The turbine control valves
ation of the grid load demand while maintaining the regulate the steam flow into the turbine in terms of
balance among the process variables within the unit. the power demand. Then, the boiler controls respond
Mainly, they match the boiler steam flow energy out- to the changes in steam flow and pressure. The basic
put to the energy required by the turbine-generator to principle of the coordinated BF mode is illustrated
match the unit load demand at all times.6 The coor- in Figure 4. The advantage of this approach is a fast
dinated control system (CCS) constitutes the upper- response to load changes, nevertheless, it should be
most layer of the control system, and it is responsible noted that such rapid response is basically achieved
for driving the boiler-turbine-generator set as a sin- by using the stored thermal energy in the plant, thus
gle entity, harmonizing the slow response of the boiler it is effective only for a small demand change. The
with the faster response of the turbine, to achieve disadvantage of the coordinated BF mode is that, in its
fast and stable unit response during load tracking pure form, this approach shows a less stable throttle
maneuvers and load disturbances. pressure control since the boiler has a tendency to

Boiler main Turbine main

control control
BD +
TD E0
– E
Turbine sub-
Boiler sub-
control
control
system
system
+ P
0
–
PT
~
Boiler Governor valve Generator

μT Turbine
Fire rate μB
FIGURE 4 | Working Principle of the Coordinated BF mode (E 0 : load set-point; P 0 : main steam pressure set-point; E : power output; PT : main
steam pressure output; BD: boiler demand; TD: turbine demand).
overshoot because it requires some time to match the different process variables in the nonlinear multi-input
turbine.10 multi-output (MIMO) power plant. Therefore, it is
Turbine following began around the late 1960s still very difficult for the classical CCS to achieve
and early 1970s.9 In the coordinated TF mode of a satisfactory control performance in both power
control, the turbine follows the actions of the boiler to output and throttle pressure.
match the requested generation. The power demand For this reason, various advanced modeling and
is used by the combustion control at the boiler to multivariable control technologies are studied, aiming
adjust the fuel and air into the furnace to modify the to realize a real coordinated control of boiler-turbine.
steam production. Then the turbine controls respond This will be introduced in the next section.
by adjusting the throttle valve openings to keep the
pressure at the setpoint value. The advantage of this
approach is its very stable response to load changes Combustion Control System
with minimal steam pressure fluctuations. The main Under the CCS, the mission of the combustion system
disadvantage is that this approach does not make use is to provide enough thermal energy while guarantee-
of the energy storage capability of the boiler, thus ing the efficient and safe operation of the boiler. Such
producing a rather slow response.10 For this reason, it requirements are fulfilled by controlling relevant vari-
is mainly used for a large base-load plant or a gas-fired ables in the plant, namely:
plant, which has a relatively quick response compared
to the coal plant. (a) Fuel flow rate to maintain throttle pressure (in
It is worth mentioning that, to improve the BF mode) or electrical power output (in TF
performance of the CCS in both BF and TF modes, mode);
the power demand is fed both to the boiler system (BF)
(b) Excess air coefficient or optimal oxygen content
and turbine system (TF)9 (this is shown as dotted-line
in the flue gases to ensure appropriate air flow
in Figures 4 and 5), so that the large inertial behavior
rate;
of boiler can be partly compensated (in BF) and the
turbine’s ability to respond quickly can be utilized (in (c) Furnace pressure to guarantee the safety of the
TF). This coordinated control scheme is now widely boiler.
used in practice.
However, the PI/ PID control systems, which The regulation of the above three variable can
are based on a cascade of separate SISO loops, be achieved through the manipulation of fuel feed-
cannot fully account for the interactions among the ers, forced draught (FD) dampers and induced draught

BD
Boiler main
control
TD
Turbine main
control
+
E0
+ P0
– E
Turbine sub-
Boiler sub- – control
control system
system
PT
~
Boiler
Governor valve Generator
μT Turbine
Fire rate μB
FIGURE 5 | Working Principle of the Coordinated TF mode (E 0 : load set-point; P 0 : main steam pressure set-point; E : power output; PT : main
steam pressure output; BD: boiler demand; TD: turbine demand).
quantity signal M is used in the inner loop to rapidly

Boiler main control
deal with any disturbances due to the variation of the
Coordination level fuel in heating values. The heat quantity signal can be
BD estimated through the equation
M = D + Cb dpb ∕dt, (1)
where, D is the steam flow rate representing the heat

absorbed by the working substance, and Pb is the drum
Fuel Air Pressure
regulator regulator regulator pressure representing the heat stored in the boiler, Cb
is the heat storing coefficient of the boiler.
The air regulator is used to guarantee the effi-
ciency of the combustion; to be specific, guarantee a
suitable ratio between the amounts of fuel and air
FIGURE 6 | Combustion control system (BD: boiler demand). being supplied to the furnace. An undersupply of the
air will prevent the fuel from complete burning; in con-
(ID) dampers, respectively, resulting in three indivisi- trast an oversupply of the air will absorb heat and thus
ble sub-regulators, i.e., the fuel regulator, air regulator increase the heat waste in the exhaust gas. In practice,
and pressure regulator as shown in Figure 6, which a certain amount of excess air is needed rather than
form the combustion control system.3,5 keeping the fuel/air ratio at the stoichiometric value.
The task of the fuel regulator is to provide Since the fuel flow rate has already been deter-
enough fuel to the boiler so that the generated thermal mined by the fuel regulator, it is direct to design a ratio
energy can exactly match the load demand. A cascade controller to keep the air flow rate matching the fuel
control strategy is usually employed in this system, flow rate. However, considering that the heating value
which is shown in the left part of Figure 7 for a BF of the fuel can vary from time to time, it is a challenge
mode plant. Because the fuel flow rate, especially for to set the ratio co-efficient in operation; therefore, the
the coal flow, is difficult to measure, and the feeder oxygen content in the flue gas is measured which can
speed signal cannot reflect the variation of the heating reflect the combustion condition directly, regardless of
value of the fuel, in most of the FFPPs, the heat the fuel variation.

O2 D
pT p0
f1(x)
– +
– +
PI1
PI5
BD
ps pss
f2(x) ×
V
M
+ – + – + – +
FIGURE 7 | Three sub regulators of boiler f3(x)
combustion control system (P 0 : main steam pressure PI2 PI3 PI4
set-point; PT : main steam pressure output; D: main
steam flow rate; O2 : oxygen content in the flue gas; V:
air flow rate; Pss : furnace pressure set-point; Ps :
furnace pressure output; BD: boiler demand). Fuel regulator Air regulator Pressure regulator
A classic air regulator using the oxygen content The drum water level is determined by both the
signal is illustrated in the middle part of Figure 7. It is volume of the water in the drum and the volume of
a cascade control system. The inner loop receives the the steam bubbles under the water level. Thus, the
fuel signal and air signal to attain a basic fuel/air ratio drum water level can be influenced by feedwater flow
and the outer loop receives the oxygen content signal rate, steam flow rate, heat quantity generated from
and compare it with the optimal oxygen content value combustion and many other variables, and its control
(which is calculated offline for a given load) to achieve presents a complex problem due to the large inertia
a tight control of the air input. behavior of these disturbances and a ‘swell and shrink’
The task of the pressure regulator is to main- effect.3
tain the furnace pressure close to the atmospheric For these reasons, a three-element cascade con-
pressure; so that the hazardous gases escaping and troller is typically used in the plant, which is illustrated
cool air entering the boiler can be prevented. Usually, in Figure 8. The steam flow rate signal D is used as
furnace pressure is required to be maintained at the feedforward signal; such a design can make the
20–50 Pa below the atmospheric pressure. Such a task feedwater flow rate respond quickly to the variation of
is achieved by the use of feedforward-feedback the steam flow rate, thus avoid the effect of ‘swell and
control system as shown in the right part of shrink’. The feedwater flow rate signal is used to form
Figure 7. the inner-loop of the control system and a secondary
controller is designed for a quick rejection of the dis-
turbance inside the feedwater system. The drum water
Feedwater Control System level H is finally fed back to the primary controller for
The objective of the feedwater control is to supply an accurate regulation.3,5
enough water to the boiler to match the evaporation The main difference between a supercritical
rate. For the subcritical plant, because the separation plant and subcritical plant is at the water-steam sys-
of steam from water always happens at the drum, tem. For the supercritical plant, feedwater circulates
maintaining the drum level naturally represents the only once in the furnace in each cycle and there is no
balance between the feedwater supply and steam clear disengagement surface between steam and water.
generation. However, both the fuel flow rate and feedwater flow
Controlling the drum water level within a given rate can greatly influence the position of the surface, if
tolerance is important for the safe operation of the such a surface deviates far away from a designed level,
plant: a high level will increase the risk of water being the steam temperature in the superheater would also
carried over into the steam circle, which may not have a deviation far away from the set-point. There-
only lead to a fluctuation of steam temperature, but fore, generally, a ratio controller is designed for the
also cause fouling and damage of the superheaters; supercritical plant to regulate the feedwater flow rate,
conversely, a low level will cause the waterwall piping keeping it matching the fuel flow rate, so that the
to be damaged from insufficient cooling. Both can steam temperature/enthalpy out of the separator can
result in catastrophic failures. be controlled within the given range.

Super heater Steam flow D

Dangerous operation region
T_sp+10
Drum Drum water
level H Δp Temporary operation region
T_sp+5
Long term operation region
T_sp
Long term operation region
Δp aD
Economizer T_sp-5
Temporary operation region
T_sp-10
PID1 Low efficiency operation region
FIGURE 9 | Operation regions of superheater steam temperature

PID2 (T_sp is the temperature set-point and the numbers represent
temperature deviations in Celsius degree).
aW
steam flow, heat transfer from flue gas and the rate
of spray water flow. The first two have a relatively
KZ quick influence on the SST while the spray water’s
influence is quite slow. However, during the operation,
the steam flow rate has to match the load demand;
Δp
the regulation of heat transfers (for example, the
FIGURE 8 | Three elements cascade feedwater control system for a burner tilt or the gas recirculation) will influence the
√ efficiency and security of combustion. Therefore, the
drum type boiler (Δp is the differential pressure transmitter; is the
square root extractor; aw , aD are the sensitive coefficients of feedwater
spray water flow becomes the only variable to control
flow rate and steam flow rate signals; Kz is the actuator of the the SST and the cascade control system is generally
feedwater flow control valve). employed, which uses an inner loop to handle the large
inertia property.
A classical SST control system is illustrated in
Steam Temperature Control System Figure 10. The inner loop receives the steam temper-
Superheater steam temperature (SST) and Reheater ature signal T2 immediately after the attemperation,
steam temperature (RST) are two of the most critical which is required to reject the temperature distur-
variables to be controlled in a steam power plant. bances originating upstream as well as the self distur-
They must be tightly controlled within a small range, bance in the spray water. The inner loop is, of course,
as shown in Figure 9, for the following safety and much faster than the outer loop, which receives the
economy reasons: final steam temperature signal T1 to achieve an accu-
rate control performance.2,5
1. Excessively high temperature will lead to mate- For the supercritical plant, as analyzed in section
rial damage on the superheater/reheater steam 3.3, the regulation capability for the spray water is
pipes at the inlet of the turbine; very limited, and the superheater steam temperature
2. Lower temperature will reduce the efficiency of is mainly controlled by regulating the fuel/feedwater
the plant, moreover, it will build up the steam ratio. The steam temperature/enthalpy out of the
humidity in the rear of the low pressure turbine separator is first controlled by keeping the feedwater
that would erode the turbine blades; and flow rate matching the fuel flow rate; spray water is
then used for a tighter control of the superheater steam
3. Large temperature variation will increase the temperature.
thermal stress of the piping material and mag- The control of the reheater steam temperature is
nify the variations of the air gap between rotor mainly attained by regulating the dampers that control
and stator of the turbine, thus threatening the the flow of the flue gases across the reheater tube
safety of the plant. banks. The spray water is only used in emergency
case, because it will reduce the amount of steam which
For the subcritical plant, there are many factors expands in the high pressure turbine and will reduce
that will influence the SST: mostly the rate of the the efficiency of the whole plant.

Attemperator when the controller parameters are well tuned,

Superheater I T2 Superheater II T1 the performance is still decreased when phys-
ical limitations (both magnitude and rate) of
the valves are involved. This may also cause
Steam
γT2 γT1 the integral windup when a sharp change of the
power demand occurs.
PI2 PI1 Therefore, various advanced control strategies

have been proposed in both academic studies and
industrial practices, aiming at improving the per-
KZ formance of the FFPP control system for economic
and safe plant operation. A migration from classical
Attemperator PI/PID based control system to new concepts based on
valve
advanced control techniques in FFPPs will take place
in a foreseeable future. The next section introduces
four types of different control strategies with diverse
FIGURE 10 | Classical cascade SST control in the FFPP (T1 is final applications in the FFPPs.
steam temperature; T2 is the steam temperature signal immediately
after the attemperation; 𝛾 T1 and 𝛾 T2 are the temperature transmitters;
Kz is the actuator of the attemperator valve).
ADVANCED CONTROL OF THE FFPP
The Drawbacks of the Conventional Control Advanced PI/PID Control

The conventional PI/PID based control system has The advanced PI/PID control refers a class of methods
been successful in FFPPs and are very reliable. Such a which implement the state-of-the-art design or tun-
design has also been proved for its value for regulation ing technologies on the basis of conventional PI/PID
and disturbance rejection during normal operation control loops. Because the PI/PID based control sys-
maintained at/around a base load. However, as the tem has already been widely accepted and employed
FFPPs increase in size and participate in grid load throughout the FFPPs, such a method can directly and
regulation more frequently, control of FFPP unit has effectively improve the operation performance with-
been shown to be a challenge, due to severe non- out altering the original simple structure, operation
linearity in the multitude of variables over a wide procedures and concepts which are well understood by
operation range, tight operating constraints and large plant engineers and operators. Recently, auto-tuning
inertia behavior. Moreover, the equipment wear, envi- and gain scheduling PI/PID controls are two exten-
ronmental changes, fuel variation, etc., will result in sively studied methods in power plants.
significant disturbances and plant behavior variations.
Consequently, the conventional PI/PID strategies Auto-Tuning PI/PID Control
are no longer sufficient in meeting performance As stated before, the power plant control system con-
specifications because of the following drawbacks: sists of many SISO PI/PID loops which are strongly
interacting to each other. The most common method
of tuning these controllers in the FFPPs is the so
(a) The main drawback of the PI/PID control
called ‘trial and error’ method.11 It generally tunes
systems, based on separate single-input,
the control loops sequentially, beginning from the
single-output (SISO) loops, is that they do
one with least interaction. For complex MIMO sys-
not account for the interactions of the different
tem like FFPP, such a method requires considerable
thermal properties in the plant.
expertise and experience and may still be difficult to
(b) In general, the PI/PID controller parameters are attain a satisfactory overall performance. An alter-
optimized at a given operating point and then native method is to design an analytical compensa-
fixed. Therefore, when wide-range load follow- tion of control-loop interactions for wide-range plant
ing is required for the FFPPs, the performance operation.12
of the plant operation is decreased because the Auto-tuning PI/PID control can potentially han-
nonlinearity becomes significant. dle the interactions among process variables and
(c) The PI/PID controllers are not possible to han- loops, where an objective function reflecting an overall
dle the constraints of manipulated variables dynamic control performance is utilized and through
in the controller calculation stage, thus even minimization of this objective function, all controller

PID controller FFPP

Reference Plant
output
Update
Objective
Model
function
Candidate controller
parameters
Run Search
mode mode
Heuristic
search FIGURE 11 | Block diagram of a typical
tuning method for PI/PID parameters.
parameters can be determined simultaneously and better model the plant behavior; thus the optimiza-
optimally. tion procedure becomes a non-convex problem with
Figure 11 shows the block diagram of a typical heavy computational load, and may get stuck in a local
tuning method in Refs 13–15, in which a dynamic minimum far from the optimal value. Consequently,
model of the plant is used to test different groups various heuristic search algorithms, such as Genetic
of controller parameters. Model plays a fundamental Algorithm (GA),14 Evolutionary Programming (EP),13
role in this method, where the tuning result and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO),15 are proposed to
computational requirement depend greatly on the find the optimal controller parameters. A basic work-
structure, accuracy and complexity of the model. If ing principle for these heuristic search techniques is:
an operation around a given loading condition is
considered, linear model may be enough to achieve
1. Initialization: generate initial controller param-
a good performance; otherwise, nonlinear analytical
eter candidates randomly in the given solution
or identified model must be employed due to the
space.
nonlinear behavior of the plant.
Besides the model, another feature that is con- 2. Evaluation: simulate the power plant model
sidered essential to this method is the objective func- with these parameters and evaluate the corre-
tion. Any output or input variables of interest in the sponding objective function;
controller tuning can be included in the objective func- 3. Modification: modify the parameters and con-
tion, and various types of functions can be designed. tinue to evaluate the performance until finding
The following quadratic output performance objective the satisfactory parameters.
function over a finite horizon N is commonly used:
The results in works13–15 show that, quality solu-
∑( t=N
)T ( )
Jk = ̂yk+t − r Q ̂yk+t − r (2) tions and fast convergences can be provided in many
t=1 applications. However, the nonlinear optimization is
still time consuming, which brings difficulties in mak-
where k is the current instant, ŷk + t is the expected ing frequent online updates. Fortunately, the PI/PID
model output vector at instant k + t based on the controller gains do not have to be updated for each
candidate controller parameters, which could include time increment, thus a large window size can be cho-
the interested variables, such as power output, throttle sen to tune the gains.15
pressure, and so on, r represents the corresponding Another drawback for this auto-tuning method
references to these output variables, and Q is the is the model-dependence character. An accurate
weighting matrix. model which can capture the dynamics of the power
If linear model is employed in the method, the plants over wide operation range is difficult to
minimization of the objective function can be for- develop. Therefore, it is worth mentioning here that
mulated into a quadratic programming (QP) prob- recently, model-free direct tuning methods using the
lem, which is computationally efficient. However, in closed-loop experimental data are employed in the
most of the cases, nonlinear models are utilized to power plant to achieve an optimal tuning of the

PI/PID controller parameters. In Ref 11, iterative the variations of process dynamics. A measurable
feedback tuning (IFT) technique is employed for a process variable, which is descriptive of the operating
simultaneously tuning of six main control loops in condition, is known as a scheduling variable and used
the power plant. In Ref 16, extremum seeking (ES) to adjust the controller parameters.
technique is utilized to find the optimal PID gains of For the FFPPs, the power load is usually selected
the superheater steam temperature control system in as the scheduling variable since its variation nat-
the FFPP. urally represents various operating points of the
Similar to the ordinary model based methods, plant, especially when the plant is operating under a
different overall control objective functions can also ‘constant-pressure’ mode. Then several typical loading
be designed in these approaches, but the gradient points are selected and at each point, the PID con-
search based minimization of these objective functions troller parameters are tuned offline. In online opera-
is time consuming and lacks robustness. One attractive tion, according to the value of the scheduling variable,
feature for these model-free based approaches is that the PID parameters can be determined through some
they potentially eliminate or reduce the modeling interpolations between the parameters predesigned
effort, but instead, a number of experiments are at typical loading points.17–19 The block diagram of
required for gradient computation, which have to be a typical gain scheduling PID control is shown in
designed carefully to make sure the operation of the Figure 12.
plant is not under too much stress.
The last technique introduced in this part is
the expert knowledge-based PI/PID auto-tuning Robust Control
approach, where the expert knowledge is utilized to One major issue in the control of FFPPs is the
determine and coordinate the controller gains. For uncertainty. First, modeling mismatches are difficult
example, to obtain a desired step response, a large to avoid due to the complex dynamics of the plant
control signal is needed in the beginning to achieve a and the desire to use simplified model; and secondly,
fast rise time, which requires a big proportional gain
the unknown disturbances commonly exist all over
and a small derivative gain. Also, because processes
the plant due to the equipment wear, environmental
have large time-delay, a small integral gain is desired
changes, fuel variation, and so on.
to reduce the overshoot. When the output response is
In contrast to the adaptive approach which
near the set-point, the proportional gain and integral
attempts to learn the uncertainties of the plant and
gain should be changed from large to small and from
eventually adjusts the controller to be best suited for
small to large, respectively, to make the controlled
the plant, the robust control has a fixed structure
output converge to the set-point quickly.
which yields acceptable performance for a given plant
On the above classical tuning knowledge, fuzzy
uncertainty set. Because the robust controllers are
rules are generated in Ref 17 to adjust the PID
simpler to implement without online-tuning to the
parameters according to the current output error
plant variations, they have been extensively studied for
e(k) and its first difference value Δe(k), and a fuzzy
FFPPs over the past few decades.
auto-tuning PID controller is designed for the main
The H∞ control is the subject of the largest share
steam pressure loop in the FFPP, which can enhance
the robustness and control performance of the PID of the robust control researches in the FFPPs. The
controller with fixed parameters. basic idea of the H∞ control comes from the theory in
The expert knowledge rule-table could be pro- the frequency domain. The H∞ norm of the transfer
duced off-line, and once finished; the PID parame- function (the maximum singular value of the func-
ters can be determined directly and efficiently by the tion over the H∞ space) can be interpreted as a maxi-
look-up table. However, no optimality can be achieved mum gain between bounded input energy and output
since no optimization is performed in this approach. energy; thus, developing a controller which could min-
imize the H∞ norm as an objective function will natu-
Gain Scheduling PI/PID Control rally reduce the closed-loop impact of a perturbation,
The computational complexity of the online-tuning and enhance the stabilization or performance.20,21
of the PI/PID parameters leads to the development To guarantee robust performance of the con-
of gain-scheduling PI/PID control methodology, which trollers under unexpected uncertainties, in Refs 22–25
is more practical to deal with the limitation of the H∞ control approaches are proposed to the
fixed parameter PI/PID controller and attain a better boiler-turbine coordinated system, gas and oil-fired
wide-range operation performance in the power plant. heating/cogeneration industrial boilers and gas tur-
The essential idea of the gain scheduling control bine. In these works, an H∞ approach with mixed
is to change the controller parameters according to sensitivity has been utilized in the controller design,

Gain scheduler
PID_1 PID_2 ... PID_n
Scheduling
variable
Controller parameters
Driving Plant
Reference error output
PID
FFPP
Controller
Control
signal
FIGURE 12 | Gain Scheduling PID control.
z1 z2 z3
W1(s) W2(s) W3(s) d
r e u y
K(s) G(s)
–
FIGURE 13 | Block diagram of a typical H ∞ mixed sensitivity problem.
which can achieve a trade-off between the robustness reflects the allowed amplitude of additive uncertainties
and performance. G(s) + Δ(s), ||T(s)||∞ reflects the allowed amplitude of
Figure 13 shows the block diagram of a typical multiplicative uncertainties (I + Δ(s))G(s).
H∞ mixed sensitivity problem, where G(s) is the A generalized plant G (s) can be built as follows:
transfer function of the plant, K(s) is the controller;
the variables r, e, u, d, and y are the reference, control ⎡z1 ⎤ [ ] ⎡W1 (s) −W1 (s) G (s)⎤ [ ]
error, control input, disturbance input and system ⎢z2 ⎥ r ⎢ 0 W2 (s) ⎥ r
output, respectively; W 1 (s), W 2 (s), and W 3 (s) are ⎢z ⎥ = G (s) u = ⎢ 0 ⎥ , (6)
W3 (s) G (s) ⎥ u
weighting matrices, and z1 , z2 , z3 are corresponding ⎢ 3⎥ ⎢
⎣e⎦ ⎣ I −G (s) ⎦
weighted control system outputs.
Performance and robustness are characterized by
various well-known closed-loop functions, in partic- u = K (s) e, (7)
ular the sensitivity function S(s), the input sensitivity
function R(s) and the complementary sensitivity func- and a transfer matrix from the disturbance input d
tion T(s): to the control system outputs z = [z1 , z2 , z3 ]T can be
S (s) = (I + G (s) K (s))−1 , (3) constructed as:
⎡ W1 (s) S (s) ⎤
R (s) = K (s) (I + G (s) K (s))−1 = K (s) S (s) , (4) Φ (s) = ⎢W2 (s) K (s) S (s)⎥ . (8)
⎢ ⎥
⎣ W3 (s) T (s) ⎦
T (s) = G (s) K (s) (I + G (s) K (s))−1 = I − S (s) , (5) Then, shaping the closed loop transfer functions
S(s), R(s), and T(s) for the control system design
Here, ||S(s)||∞ reflects the disturbance rejection is converted to find the controller K(s) which can
and reference following ability of the system, ||R(s)||∞ minimize ||Φ(s)||∞ .

In Ref 22, H∞ controller is compared with other state-space type of local models, Lyapunov theory
modern control design methods, such as 𝜇-synthesis and Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) technique are
and H2 approaches through the simulation on a employed in these methods, and a robust tracking
boiler-turbine coordinated system model. Their test control of the boiler-turbine is achieved in a wide
results show that under the presence of complicating operation range with the stability of the closed-loop
factors such as coupling between multi-variables, time system being guaranteed.
delay, modeling uncertainty, output disturbances and Although H∞ approach is the most popular
sensor noise in the FFPPs, the H∞ controller can one in the area of FFPP robust control, it is by
provide performance and robustness superior to that no means the only approach. Other robust control
attainable by other designs. approaches such as linear quadratic Gaussian with
In Refs 26–28, the H∞ loop shaping technique loop transfer recovery32 (LQG/LTR) and 𝜇-synthesis33
is utilized to design multi-variable robust PI/PID con- are also applied to the FFPPs to enhance the system
trollers for the FFPPs. The results show that, owning robustness and performance.
to the advantages of the H∞ design approach such
as: yielding MIMO control laws, providing strong Model Predictive Control
robustness of the system, the proposed controllers Although better control performance can be attained
can achieve better performances than the conventional by the use of advanced PI/PID controller or robust
PI/PIDs. controller, none of them can effectively deal with the
However, there are some drawbacks which may input constraints during the controller design stage.
limit the application of H∞ design approach in Therefore in practice, when physical limitations of
practice: valves in the FFPPs are involved, the performance
of the controllers will be degraded. In this context,
1. Relying on the linear model of the plant; the model predictive control (MPC) has been widely
2. The weighting matrices W 1 (s), W 2 (s), and employed in recent years.
W 3 (s) are important to attain a balance among MPC refers to a class of control approaches
various control performance objectives, how- which utilize an explicit process model to predict the
ever, the setting and tuning of them is indirect future response of a plant and calculate the control
and inconvenient; inputs through the minimization of a dynamic objec-
3. In general, the resulting controller has high tive function within the predictive horizon.34 Origi-
nally applied mainly in the petrochemical industry, the
order, thus order reduction has to be carried
predictive control has progressed steadily and gradu-
out without degradation in performance and
ally made a significant impact on the FFPPs control.
robustness;
The main reasons for its success in FFPP studies and
4. Cannot deal with the input constraints effec- applications are:
tively (although tuning W 2 (s) can impose limi-
tations on the inputs to some extent); 1. It can effectively handle the actuator limitations
and allow the operation closer to constraints,
As the FFPPs are required to operate in a wide which frequently leads to more rapid response
loading range, the liner model based H∞ approach is and more profitable operation.
becoming insufficient, even if the robustness can be 2. It handles multivariable control problems natu-
guaranteed within a certain range around the typical rally.
operating point. Therefore, multi-model based H∞ 3. It can effectively deal with the large inertial and
approaches are proposed recently. time-delay behavior of the plant.
In Ref 29, two transfer function models
4. The tuning of the parameters is easy and intu-
are developed at different operating point of the
itive; no special attention needs to be placed on
boiler-turbine unit of a coal-fired power plant, and
constraints and optimization.
two H∞ controllers are built based on these models
to guarantee the robustness in each local-region. The basic idea and principle of the MPC is
A bumpless switchover mechanism is designed to shown in Figure 14, and can be briefly explained in
achieve a smooth transition between the two oper- three steps:
ating regions, thus a wide range load following is
attained. In Refs 30 and 31, robust H∞ tracking 1. At current time k, based on the available infor-
controllers are designed for the boiler-turbine unit mation and predictive model, predict the future
via Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model. Based on the response of the plant within the predictive

into a matrix inequality involving the input vector. As

Past Future
QP is one of the simplest possible optimization prob-
lems, the optimal inputs can be found efficiently.34
Because the linear step response model of the
rk + p plant can be easily obtained, dynamic matrix control
(DMC) has been extensively studied. In Ref 35, DMC
ŷk+p is applied to a drum-type boiler-turbine system to
yk–1
achieve a simultaneous control of electrical power,
drum pressure and water level. It shows that the
uk–1 u*k+p step-response model based on the test data is better
suited than the linearized model. In Refs 36 and
k k+1 k+Ny
37, DMC techniques have been applied to control
k+Nu
the superheater/reheater steam temperature of the
Control horizon Nu FFPPs, the results demonstrate that better control
Predictive horizon Ny performance can be achieved as compared to the
conventional PID control.
FIGURE 14 | Basic working principle of the MPC. Another linear MPC that has been widely used
in the FFPPs is the generalized predictive control
horizon Ny ,{and express the future predic- (GPC), where auto regressive moving-average model
}
tive outputs ̂ y ,̂ y , … ,̂ yk+Ny in terms of is employed.38–41 In Refs 38 and 39, multi-variable
{ k+1 k+2 } GPCs are developed for a coordinated control of
future inputs uk+1 , uk+2 , … , uk+Nu . the boiler-turbine; their simulation results indicate
2. Through minimizing a given dynamic control that, compared with PID, the GPCs can not only
objective function, calculate
{ the optimal future } track the target value smoothly and rapidly with
control sequence u∗k+1 , u∗k+2 , … , u∗k+N , smaller overshoot and shorter adjusting time, but
u
which can drive the predictive output ŷ to also has stronger robustness. In Ref 40, GPC is
follow the reference r in an optimal way. designed to regulate the superheater and reheater
steam temperatures of a 200 MW power plant. To
3. Send only the first input in the optimal sequence
further enhance the robustness of the system and
to the plant, and repeat the entire calculation at
attain a wide range operation of the plant, recursive
subsequent time.
least square based adaptive algorithm is added to the
GPC, which can tune the controller parameters online
using the real-time input/output data. In Ref 41, the
Linear MPC adaptive GPC is tested in a real power plant and
The first generation of MPCs applied to the FFPPs is evident improvements were observed in the results.
the linear MPCs, in which linear model for the plant is
utilized and the optimal control inputs are determined Nonlinear MPC
through minimizing a finite horizon quadratic perfor-
Although the linear MPC can effectively improve the
mance objective:
control performance of FFPPs, due to the fact that
N the linear model works only for linear system, its
( ) ∑y
[ ( ) ( )]T application is limited to a small operating region of a
J k = ̂
y k + j|k − r k + j
j=1
plant. For this reason, nonlinear plant model has been
[ ( ) ( )] used instead of the linear model in the MPC design to
×Q ̂
y k + j|k − r k + j achieve a wide range plant operation.
∑
Nu To overcome the issues associated with nonlinear
( )T ( )
+ Δu k + j − 1|k RΔu k + j − 1|k . modeling and computational requirement, artificial
j=1 intelligence techniques have been applied. In Ref 42,
(9) the nonlinear analytical model of the plant is employed
as the predictive model, and GA is utilized to cal-
The future projected output ŷ can be related culate the optimal control sequence under the input
directly back to the input vector Δu through the linear constraints. In Ref 43, neural network-auto regres-
model and the objective function can be re-written in sive exogenous (NN-ARX) model is identified for a
the form of a standard quadratic programming (QP) 200 MW oil-fired drum-boiler plant, and an MPC is
problem with all input output constraints collected designed based on the model. Simulation results show

that a satisfactory control of main steam pressure among these local models. GPC is then designed on
and temperature and reheat steam temperature can the basis of the global model to achieve a wide range
be attained during load-cycling and other severe plant control of the power plant, as shown in Figure 15.
operating conditions. To improve the computational Based on the Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural
performance of the nonlinear optimization, the par- network and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System
ticle swarm optimization (PSO) and its modifications (ANFIS) approaches, local linear MPCs developed
have been used in Refs 44–46 to search for the opti- at different loading points are combined for the
mal control sequence in the NN based nonlinear MPC; coordinated control of a 500 MW plant.52,53 Although
the advantages and effectiveness of these approaches the multi-model strategy seems more complicated than
have been clearly shown through simulations of the the direct nonlinear approaches, in fact, it is easier
superheater and reheater steam temperature control of and more efficient to implement. To improve the
the FFPPs. In Refs 15 and 47 online-update diagonal wide-range operation of a boiler-turbine system, a
recurrent neural network (DRNN) models have been fuzzy interpolated DMC is proposed in Ref 54, which
developed for 500 and 1000 MW FFPPs, and PSO can be viewed as an extension of the linear DMC in
based nonlinear MPCs are then designed to achieve Ref 35.
a plant-wide control. In Refs 49, 55, 56, GPCs are developed on
Besides the intelligence-based nonlinear MPC, the basis of neuro-fuzzy networks (NFNs), both the
in Ref 48, a load-dependent exponential ARX local linear model weighted and controller weighted
(Exp-ARX) model that can effectively describe approaches are given in these works. Through the
the plant nonlinear properties is identified off-line, simulation studies on the boiler-turbine coordinated
and then used to establish a constrained multivariate system and superheater steam temperature system,
multistep predictive controller. Simulation studies on better control performance is shown compared to the
a 600 MW FFPP indicate that owing to the ability of linear GPC.
the nonlinear model capturing the plant dynamics, In Refs 57–66, multi-model MPCs are pro-
much better control performance can be attained posed on the piecewise linear (PWL) models, piecewise
without using the online-update method. Based on affine (PWA) models or Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy
the technique of input-output feedback linearization, model using various kinds of objective functions and
GPC is combined with the nonlinear state feedback computational tools, such as QP,57,58,60 LMIs,63–66
controller in Ref 49 to solve the control problem of a multi-parameter programming (MPT),59 GA61 and
160 MW boiler-turbine unit. iterative learning control (ILC).62 Besides Ref 62, it is
The nonlinear MPC is naturally suited for con- interesting to note that, a state-space type of local lin-
trol of the nonlinear FFPPs; however, there are two ear model is adopted in most of the multi-model MPCs
main issues, which greatly limit its application: (1) because of the advances in multi-variable systems
the satisfactory nonlinear dynamic model is difficult and the-state-of-the-art control techniques for linear
to build; and (2) the nonlinear optimization lacks in systems.
robustness and suffers from computational require- In Refs 59 and 61, the stability of the closed-loop
ment. To overcome these issues, the multi-model based control system is achieved and the overall control
predictive controllers are developed recently. performance is improved by including a terminal
inequality constraint, which forces the states at the
Multi-Model MPC end of the finite prediction horizon to lie within a
The essential idea of the multi-model technique is prescribed terminal region, and by adding a quadratic
‘divide and conquer’, which uses a combination of terminal state penalty cost in the objective function.
several linear models to approximate the nonlinear In Refs 63–66, an infinite-horizon objective function
behavior of the plant.50 Because the advances in linear is adopted and a Lyapunov function is constructed to
modeling and control theory can be directly taken find the upper-bound of the objective function and
into account, the multi-model techniques bring an ensure the stability. The control input can be solved
alternative way to handle the nonlinearity, and its by minimizing this upper-bound while subjecting to
integration with the MPC approach has been shown the stability and input constraints in the form of
to be effective to control the power plants.49,51–66 linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). In Refs 61, 65, 66, a
The earliest multi-model MPC used in power disturbance observer and steady-state target calculator
plant control is presented in Ref 51, where networks of (SSTC) are added to the MPC structure to achieve
dynamic local linear models are created after dividing a tracking control of the boiler-turbine unit even in
the whole operating region into a number of zones and the case of significant unknown disturbances or plant
the global model is built by using the interpolation parameter variations.

Multi-model MPC
Optimal control
Reference Moving horizon input Plant output
optimizaiton FFPP
Global model Power load Weight

calculation
Local model #1
Local model #2
...
Local model #i
+ FIGURE 15 | Control diagram of

model-weighted multi-model MPC.
Intelligent Control (such as BP or RBF neural networks) with tapped

The development of intelligent techniques in power delays.68 Beside this, in Refs 44–46, Elman neural
plant control are increasing steadily in recent years networks (ENN) and their modifications are utilized
owing to its advantages, such as overcoming the sig- to approximate the behavior of the steam temper-
nificant nonlinear and uncertain dynamics, computa- ature systems of FFPPs. The ENN differs from the
tional complexity and other problems associated with conventional feedforward networks in that it includes
large-scale distributed complex power plants. recurrent or feedback connections. The delay in these
Intelligent control is a class of control tech- connections store values in the previous time-step and
niques that use various computational intelligence use them as inputs in the current step, which makes the
techniques to develop the computer-based control sys- network sensitive to the history of input and output
tems. Because, the intelligent control system behaves data, suitable for dynamic system modeling.
as humans or species in nature, with the ability to The basic structure of an ENN with M inputs
learn and discover knowledge, emulate human exper- and N outputs is shown in Figure 16, where the
tise and decision making, and accomplish the tasks, it recurrent neurons are in the context layer. The outputs
can autonomously achieve a high level goal even in the in each layer of an ENN are given by:
complicated or unexpected case.67 (M )
As was already introduced in the advanced ( ) ∑ ( ) ∑R
( )
PI/PID control and MPC sections, many different xj k = f 1
Wi,j ui k + Wi,j ci k ,
3
(10)
i=1 i=1
intelligent techniques have been applied to power
plant control, and their structures are modified in gen- ( ) ( )
eral depending on the purpose of application. The ci k = xi k − 1 , (11)
most popular intelligent techniques are neural net-
work, fuzzy logic, evolutionary programming, genetic (R )
algorithm, particle swarm optimization, multi-agent ( ) ∑ ( )
systems, as well as their combinations. yj k = g Wi,j xi k ,
2
(12)
i=1
The first intelligent technique investigated in the
section is the neural network (NN). Since the NN 1
has outstanding abilities in knowledge discovery, or where, Wi,j is the weight that connects node i in the
2
discovering underlying, hidden patterns in data sets, input layer to node j in the hidden layer; Wi,j is the
it provides an effective way to develop the model for weight that connects node i in the hidden layer to node
3
the nonlinear power plant using only the input-output j in the output layer; Wi,j is the weight that connects
data, which is generally the first and foremost impor- node i in the context layer to node j in the hidden layer;
tant step in the advanced controller design. and f (·) and g(·) are the transfer functions of the hidden
To provide dynamic information about the plant layer and the output layer neurons, respectively, where
for controller design, the usual NN modeling is f (·) mostly takes logsig or tansig function and g(·) often
combining the conventional feedforward networks takes purelin function.

y1(k) yN(k)
… Δ Δ
yref
NNIC Plant
u(k) y(k+1)
x1(k) … xR(k)
Δ Δ FIGURE 17 | Control system of the NNIC.
Therefore, by introducing a natural selection mecha-

… … nism, which is usually performed by the EP and GA,
C1(k) Cp(k)
u1(k) uM(k) the effect of pbest and gbest is gradually curtailed and
Context layer a broader search area can be realized. The resulting
FIGURE 16 | Basic structure of the ENN. hybrid PSO can have a higher performance.
Besides the traditional model based controller,
the neural network technique can also be used to
As a special case of the ENN, the diagonal recur- design the model-free controllers directly, which is
rent neural network (DRNN) is also popular in the called the neural network inverse control (NNIC).
area of FFPP dynamic modeling.13,15,47,69 Compared The essential idea of the NNIC is to identify an
with the ENN, the context layer of DRNN is col- input/output mapping:
lapsed to the hidden layer, which eliminates the cross
( ) ( ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
talks and reduces the number of weights between the u k = g y k + 1 ,y k ,y k − 1 , … ,y k − n ,
context layer and the hidden layer. Therefore, fewer ( ) ( ) ( ))
training iterations are needed and the DRNN is better u k − 1 , u k − 2 , … , u k − m , (13)
suited for real-time application.69
In order to capture the complex dynamic of the which can be viewed as a nonlinear inverse mapping
whole power plant, the DRNN based combined model of the conventional dynamic model:
is proposed in Refs 15 and 69, where each primary ( ) ( ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
component of the plant is approximated by a DRNN y k + 1 = g y k ,y k − 1 , … ,y k − n ,u k ,
( ) ( ))
model. Then these DRNNs are connected by using the u k − 1 , … ,u k − m . (14)
outputs of a DRNN as the inputs of another DRNN.
The composed hierarchical structure can achieve a The inverse mapping function g(·) can be iden-
satisfactory accuracy, thus can be used as the plant tified by using the ENN or DRNN, and it is capable
simulator. to find the control input u(k) to drive the system to an
With the dynamic process model being suc- expected point y(k + 1). Therefore, it can be used as
cessfully developed, various advanced controller a controller by replacing the future expected output
can be designed, for example, the aforementioned y(k + 1) in Equation (13) with the desired output, yref .
Auto-tuning PI/PID Control and nonlinear MPC. If the network represents the exact inverse, the control
To generate solutions to the highly complex nonlin- input produced by the network will drive the system
ear optimization problem, heuristic optimization output y(k + 1) to yref . Figure 17 illustrates how the
techniques, such as evolutionary programming NNIC is applied as a controller in the system.
(EP),13,70 genetic algorithm (GA)14,42 or particle As the NNIC is a feedforward controller, in order
swarm optimization (PSO)15,44–47 have been employed to deal with the unavoidable modeling mismatches
extensively, providing quality solutions and fast con- and the unknown plant variations and disturbances,
vergence compared with the conventional nonlinear a PID compensator is usually augmented to the sys-
programming. tem, and the resulting control structure is shown
The basic principle for all these heuristic opti- in Figure 18. The NNIC is used as a feedforward
mization algorithms can be concluded as: initializa- controller, which provides the main contribution to
tion, evaluation and modification as we introduced in the control signal to make the plant respond quickly
the Auto-tuning PI/PID Control section. In Ref 71, to the set-point changes, thus shorten the stabilization
basic GA and PSO algorithms are compared and the time and reduce the overshot of the control process,
results show that PSO can attain a better performance. and the PID compensator is serving as the feedback
However, because the search procedure by the PSO controller to eliminate the steady-state control error
strongly depends on the agent best value so far (pbest) induced by the NNIC.
and the global best value (gbest), the search area can be The feedforward-feedback control system is
limited by them, which may lead to the local minima. utilized in Refs 72 and 73 to regulate the superheater

of the fuzzy model, which is composed by current and

Δ Δ past measurable variables of the plant.
yref By using fuzzy blending, the dynamic fuzzy
NNIC +
u(k)
Plant model (15) can be expressed by the following global
y(k+1)
model:
{ ( ) ( ) ( )
PID x k + 1 = AZ x k + BZ u k
compensator ( ) ( ) ( ) (16)
y k = CZ x k + DZ u k
FIGURE 18 | NNIC augmented by a PID compensator.
∑L ( ( )) ( ( ))
where AZ = i=1 wi Z k Ai , wi Z k =
( ( )) ∑L ( ( )) ( ( ))
steam temperature in the FFPPs. The results in these Mi Z k ∕ i=1 Mi Z k , Mi Z k =
works show that owing to the advantages of both ∏
N ( ( ))
NNIC and the PID compensator, better control per- Mij zj k , and all other matrices Bz , Cz , and
j=1
formance can be realized than the original cascade Dz are defined in the same way.
PID control. In Refs 30, 60–62, 64–66 an approximation or
Another intelligent technique being widely used transformation of the nonlinear system has been used
in the area of FFPP modeling and control is the fuzzy to obtain the linear state-space model at different load-
logic control (FLC), which has advantage in capturing ing conditions, then according to the expert knowl-
the tacit knowledge of the system. The Takagi-Sugeno edge or the nonlinear investigation of the plant, the
(T-S) fuzzy modeling technique is now the most pop- fuzzy rules are developed to connect the local mod-
ular FFPP modeling strategy.74 Its basic idea is using els and form the integrated T-S fuzzy model of the
the fuzzy set to divide the whole operation region FFPP. In Ref 75, a data-driven fuzzy modeling strategy
of the system into several overlapping local regions; is proposed, where Gaustafson-Kessel (G-K) cluster-
in each local region, a simple linear model is devel- ing is used to provide an appropriate division of the
oped to represent the local dynamics of the system, operation region and develop the structure of the T-S
and then the global model is finally derived from the fuzzy model. Then by combining the input data with
weighted summation of all the local models. Because the corresponding fuzzy membership functions, the
the T-S fuzzy model can approximate the nonlinear subspace identification (SID) method is extended to
behavior of the plant using the combination of several extract the local state-space model parameters. Owing
linear models, the advanced linear control theory can to the advantages of the both methods, the resulting
be used to overcome the nonlinear control problem. fuzzy model can represent the boiler-turbine unit of
Moreover, since the overlaps between different regions an FFPP very closely for advanced controller design.
can guarantee smooth transitions between local mod- The fuzzy technique also provides an effective
els, the T-S fuzzy model naturally provides a bumpless way to design the controller. In Refs 76 and 77, control
switchover. rules are first given based on the expert knowledge to
Take the discrete-time, state-space form of local determine the linguistic value of the control signal cor-
model, for instance, the T-S fuzzy model can be responding to the current output error e(k) and its first
described as follows: difference value Δe(k) . Fuzzy logic controllers are then
( ) ( ) developed based on Gaussian and Triangular-shaped
Ri ∶ IF z1 k is Mi1 , z2 k membership functions to control the nonlinear
( ) boiler system and boiler-turbine system in the FFPP,
is Mi2 , … , zN k is MiN , THEN ∶
{ ( ) ( ) ( ) respectively.
x k + 1 = Ai x k + Bi u k In Ref 78, a Fuzzy Auto-Regressive Mov-
( ) ( ) ( )
y k = Ci x k + Di u k i = 1, 2, … L ing Average (FARMA) controller is applied to the
boiler–turbine system, the controller is an inverse
(15) mapping of the FARMA model, which finds the
control input according to the reference value and
where Ri denotes the ith fuzzy rule, L the num- historic input–output data. Unlike a conventional
ber of fuzzy rules, Mij (j = 1, 2, … , N) the fuzzy sets; FLC, where an expert gives the linguistic values of the
x(k) ∈ ℜn the state vector, u(k) ∈ ℜm the control antecedent and consequent variables and makes rules;
input vector, and y(k) ∈ ℜl the output vector. The in the FARMA controller, these linguistic values are
matrices (Ai , Bi , Ci , Di ) are local system matrices, and determined from the crisp values of the input–output
Z(k) = (z1 (k), z2 (k), … , zN (k)) is the antecedent vector history at each sampling time. It has been shown

in the simulation that by using the self-organizing steam, combustion gases, and heat transfer compo-
procedure to update the rule base, better controls can nents in extremely adverse power plant environments.
be applied as time progresses. Traditional sensors have not exhibited sufficient
Meeting the power demand of the grid has stability and long-term accuracy without requiring
been the primary FFPP operation task. However, due expensive maintenance and recalibration. However,
to the energy shortage and environmental concern intelligent distributed parameter estimation coupled
worldwide as well as competition among utilities and with the fiber-optic sensor system promises better
other society driven forces, more stringent require- estimate of the temperature distribution of a boiler
ments, such as minimization of fuel consumption, furnace and for improved combustion.85,86 The
maximization of duty life and minimization of pollu- basic approach in developing the intelligent mon-
tion, etc., have to be fulfilled by the power plant to itoring system is in two folds: (1) development of
achieve an optimal operation. Therefore, not only the distributed parameter system (DPS) models to map
conventional dynamic control performance, but also the three-dimensional (3D) temperature distribution
the set-point optimization considering the aforemen- for the furnace; and (2) development of an intelligent
tioned multiple objectives is important to realize an monitoring system for real-time monitoring of the
integrated optimal control of the FFPP, where vari- 3D boiler temperature distribution based on the 1D
ous computational intelligence techniques are utilized fiber-optic sensors.
to overcome the nonlinear modeling and calculation The aforementioned intelligent techniques have
issues of the FFPP. been applied extensively in the area of power plant
In Refs 79–81, multi-objective optimization is modeling, control, optimization and monitoring, and
performed to adjust the power-pressure mapping their effectiveness in dealing with the nonlinearity
to optimally accommodate different operating sce- and uncertainty of the plants has been demonstrated
narios, where more economic, environmental and through simulations. However, both the FFPP and its
safety concerns are taken into account. Steady-state operation system are large-scale complex system con-
ANN models are first developed in these works to sisting of many subsystems and functions, and it is dif-
capture the steady-state nonlinear behavior between ficult and dangerous to manage the system using only
multi-variables in the boiler-turbine system, and then the centralized control schemes or loosely decentral-
PSO algorithm is employed to calculate the optimal ized control schemes because a single failure can bring
set-points. In Refs 13, 15, 71, the similar methods are down the entire system. Therefore, recently, there has
used in large-scale FFPP simulators to achieve a plant been growing interest in multi-agent systems (MASs)
wide optimization of the set-points. in order to deal successfully with the complexity and
To reduce the nitrogen oxides (NOx ) emission distributed problems in power plants and make the
during coal combustion in the FFPPs, combustion control system operate at a higher level of automation,
optimization is studied in Refs 82–85 to find the opti- flexibility and robustness.
mal openings for the primary, secondary and over-fire The basic unit in the MAS is the agent which
air valves at different layers of the boiler. Since the has intelligent and autonomous properties because
development of an accurate analytical model for a it is reactive, proactive, social, flexible and robust,
coal-fired boiler is difficult owing to the complexity and has multiple algorithms for solving problems.
of the system, data-driven modeling methods such as After receiving and confirming the objective through
ANN, support vector machine (SVM), fuzzy c-means the communication with other agents, the agent will
clustering as well as their mixtures are proposed to choose a plan for the objective and select an algorithm
build the steady-state relationships between these air to launch the plan.
valves and NOx emission. The agents are arranged into a hierarchical
The electric utility industry is charged to deliver structure and form the MAS. In the highest level of
power as inexpensively and as reliably as possible. the MAS, the task delegation agent allocates tasks
Meeting these dual obligations has become increas- to different agents and investigates the performance
ingly difficult over the past 30 years. Environmental and problems of the lower level. In the middle level,
and economic concerns pressed the utility industry the mediate agent coordinates the cooperation of the
to develop clean and efficient ways of burning coal lower agents such as, asks a certain agent to share the
and oil. This has required major improvements in information directly with the information requesters.
not only the optimization and control, but also the A monitoring agent is also placed in this layer to
monitoring of electric power plant components such select, store and analyze the sensing data of the power
as boilers. It has become a challenge to measure high plant. In the lowest level, intelligent agents that have
temperature distributions of high-pressure liquids, multiple algorithm modules are cooperating together

to identify the system, perform the multi-objective combustion control and the resulting difficulties in
optimization and determine the set-points and control steam temperature and pressure control.
law. Design of single agents and the integrated MAS For this reason, a novel laser based measure-
as well as its implementation in the FFPPs are well ment product is developed by the ZOLOBOSS based
introduced in Refs 13, 67, 79, 80. on the technology of tunable diode laser absorption
spectroscopy (TDLAS). The TDLAS instruments rely
on well-known spectroscopic principles and sensitive
ADVANCED CONTROL TECHNOLOGY detection techniques, coupled with advanced diode
PRODUCTS FOR THE FFPP lasers and optical fibers developed by the telecommu-
nications industry. The principles are straightforward:
Although the power plant industry may still be reluc- Gas molecules absorb energy at specific wavelengths in
tant to accept changes that would revolutionize well the electromagnetic spectrum. At wavelengths slightly
assessed procedures due to the reasons such as: relia- different from these absorption lines, there is essen-
bility, complex design, tuning parameters and train- tially no absorption. Thus, by (1) transmitting a light
ing of plant personnel, the environment of growing beam through the gas mixture in the boiler furnace
energy and pollution issues, increased FFPP control where the target gas is contained, and (2) tuning the
challenges as well as the significant improvements wavelength of the beam to one of the absorption lines
reported by the academic studies has already led to of the target gas, and (3) accurately measuring the
the technology development in the industry. Moreover, absorption of that beam, one can deduce the concen-
over the course of the last two decades, the widespread tration of target gas molecules as well as the flue gas
use of distributed control system (DCS) in power temperatures distributed over the beam’s path. In gen-
plant and the development of computer technologies eral, multiple light paths are assigned in the grid form
have facilitated the employment of advanced con- on the certain layer of the furnace, so that through
trol approaches. The new control software could be the computer aided calculation and tomography, the
installed in the programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
temperature and gas concentration distribution can be
or industrial computers and communicates with the
obtained and viewed.
DCS through the object linking and embedding for
Knowing the combustion condition in the fur-
process control (OPC) or Modbus protocols, which
nace will provide a direct guidance for the FFPP oper-
will then collect the required data and send the com-
ators to achieve a safe and efficient operation of the
mands to regulate the actuators. For these reasons,
boiler; for example, prevent the dust deposition and
several companies have presented their own commer-
slagging in the furnace, reduce the deviation of the
cial FFPP control solution products, aiming at improv-
flue gas temperature at the exit of the furnace to pre-
ing the operation performance of the FFPPs. The
purpose of this section is to introduce several examples vent the explosion of the heating surface, etc. More-
of commercial products provided by different compa- over, by using the data in the combustion zone of
nies to demonstrate the effectiveness of the advance the furnace, more accurate combustion model can be
technologies in the FFPP practice. developed or updated. The BCOS-ZOLO proposes the
The first product introduced is the BCOS-ZOLO use of the ANN to capture the dynamics between the
offered by ZOLOBOSS,87 which is an FFPP opera- boiler operation condition (load, fuel variations, envi-
tion optimizer on the basis of direct monitoring of ronmental temperature, etc.), distributions of fuel and
the combustion zone in the furnace and combustion air, and the performance of the combustion (boiler
optimization. As is well known, the combustion in efficiency, NOx emission, etc.). On the basis of the
the furnace is the energy source of the FFPP, how- model, the best distributions of the fuel and air
ever, the high temperature (beyond 1500∘ C) in the can be calculated for different loading condition and
combustion zone of the furnace makes it impossi- fuel variation through multiple computational intel-
ble to measure the combustion condition (tempera- ligence algorithms to realize an optimal operation of
ture, and the contents of O2 , CO, etc., in the flue the boiler.
gas) using the traditional instrumentations such as the Furthermore, the flue gas temperature in the fur-
thermocouple, Zirconium oxide detector, CO detec- nace can be used to calculate the equivalent radiation
tor, and so on. Therefore, so far, the plant personnel energy in the boiler, which can represent a balance
can only estimate the parameters in the combustion between the boiler and turbine. Thus, by using the
zone according to the experience; based on the mea- radiation energy signal as a feedforward signal, the
surement data around the rear flue gas channel, which issues of large inertia behavior of the steam pressure
is inaccurate and thus brings great challenges in the and temperature control system can be overcome to a

large extent, and a better load following operation can DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
directly be achieved.
Over the past hundred years, FFPPs have been the
A similar TDLAS based FFPP optimization is
primary power generation plants in the world, and
also offered by the SIEMENS SPPA-P3000 Process
made a solid foundation for the people’s lives, and
optimizer.88 Both the two products have now been
social and industrial developments. Design of FFPP
applied in more than 20 FFPPs in the world, mostly
has evolved dramatically in the area of scale, working
in the United States, Germany and Korea. The main
parameters, configurations and techniques to meet the
features of them can be concluded as:
growing power demand.
In recent 20 years, in order to solve the control
1. Direct measuring of the parameters in the com- issues of FFPPs such as wide range load following,
bustion zone of the boiler through the TDLAS; fuel and plant behavior variations, and achieve a more
2. Developing the combustion model using the safe and efficient operation, various advanced FFPP
ANN technique; control techniques have progressed swiftly in both
3. Using the computational intelligence technolo- the academic researches and industrial applications,
gies to optimize the combustion; challenging the classical PI/PID based control system.
The major FFPP control developments include:
4. Improving the control performance of the steam
pressure and temperature.
1. Advanced PI/PID controllers using auto tuning
or gain scheduling techniques to improve the
To improve the control performance of
operation of the FFPPs in a wide load range;
the large-scale power plant, many companies
such as SIEMENS,89 EMERSON,90 ABB91 and 2. Robust controllers in order to deal with the fuel
HONEYWELL,92 have launched their own FFPP and plant behavior variations, uncertainties and
coordinated control optimizers. The common features disturbances;
of these commercial products are: (1) identifying 3. Linear, nonlinear or multi-model based MPCs to
the process model to approximate the dynamics of handle the large-inertia behavior and the strict
the plant; and (2) utilizing advanced control strate- input–output constraints of the plants;
gies such as multi-variable control methods, MPCs 4. Computational intelligence techniques in model-
or intelligent control algorithms to improve the ing, optimization and control, solving the non-
performance of the plant. linear issues of the plants.
Among these commercial products, the PROFI
UCC offered by SIEMENS89 is the most widely used
one. The essential idea of the PROFI UCC is devel- These advanced control methods as well as their
oping/updating a nonlinear model of the boiler and mixtures have all been implemented in the FFPP
using the technology of MPC to estimate the ‘ther- control practices and we cannot answer which one
mal energy’ produced by the boiler, through which, is the best and will be the future trends of the
a pre-action command can be given to the fuel feeder FFPP control. But, considering the benefits brought by
to compensate for the inertia and delay behavior of these advanced technologies and the facilities provided
the boiler so that a quick load following performance by the wide use of DCS and fast development of
and a smooth response of the main steam pressure and computer technologies, it is safe to say that much more
temperature can be achieved. development in nonlinear, intelligent and model-based
On the basis of model prediction, a multi-input MIMO control of FFPPs is ahead of us, and the
multi-output rate-optimal controller (MIMOROC) advanced control techniques will replace the classical
is proposed by the HONEYWELL’s UES92 for the PI/PID controllers in a foreseeable future.
optimization of the combustion, steam pressure and However, through the investigation of many
temperature control. By using the MPC’s ability advanced FFPP control works, there are several issues
of dealing with the input–output constraints, the that may need to be studied further in the future:
MIMOROC allows operation closer to the constraints
compared with conventional control, which leads to 1. Measurement of key parameters during the
quicker load following and more efficient and prof- plant operation. For example, novel mea-
itable operation. Remarkable plant efficiency and surement technologies can be developed to
profit improvement have been reported on the FFPPs, monitor the pulverized coal concentration and
where these advanced plant operation optimizers are primary air flow rate from pulverizing mills to
implemented. the burners (Some products have already been

developed recently, for example, the PfMaster and design specifications of many components,
by ABB/Greenbank). These parameters are which becomes the major limitation for the
unknown in the FFPPs, but have been found to application of advanced control methods. For
be the main factors causing the uneven distri- this reason, system identification methods using
bution of the temperature field in the furnace the closed-loop plant operation data provide
and the explosions of the waterwalls and super- an efficient way to develop a control oriented
heaters. Therefore, through the measurement of model in practice. In that case, how to design an
them, additional regulators can be installed in optimal input signal for identification, examine
the outlets of the pulverizing mills to guarantee and polish the data, select the model structure,
even and balanced combustion in the furnace. and test the model sufficiently for healthy inter-
Another example is the coal properties. Cur- action with the identification theory, are all
rently the variation of the fuel is one of the important issues in the FFPP practices.
key problems in the coal-fired power plants, 4. Better combination of the analytical model and
the uncertainty greatly influences the safety, modern control theory. Although difficult to
stability and efficiency of the combustion and develop, an analytical model is after all the
plant operation. Therefore, soft measurement best one to accurately portray the dynamics
technologies of the coal properties are expected of nonlinear FFPPs; it can also provide much
to be developed using the combination of ther- information which will guide the controller
modynamic knowledge and plant operation design. Therefore, how to better integrate the
data, so that more optimal and robust control knowledge of analytical model and advanced
can be attained through its estimation. control technology to develop a controller better
2. Optimal control. As mentioned before, in the suited for the FFPP is a possible future research
context of global energy and environmen- topic, for example, leading to an analytical
tal issues, the control objective of the FFPP model based nonlinear predictive controller.
should be broadened from a simple objective 5. Reliability. Although the advance controllers
of dynamic control optimality to simultane- will effectively deal with the control issues of
ous and multiple objectives of plant economic the FFPP and greatly improve the operational
operation, emission and dynamic control perfor- performance, we have to admit that, compared
mance. Thus, on the one hand, advanced multi- to the single-input, single-output PI/PID control
objective optimization with Pareto optimality loops currently used in FFPPs, these advanced
can be developed based on the plant models and controllers are complicated in structure, param-
dynamics and environmental changes to provide eter tuning and computation; therefore, it has
optimal set-points for the control layer, replac- limitations in reliability. Furthermore, because
ing current fixed and non-optimal set-points the multi-variable controller would work in a
given at specific loading condition; on the other centralized control unit in most of the applica-
hand, more simple and efficient method such tions, a failure of the control algorithm would
as novel economic MPC can be investigated, induce a failure of the entire plant. These are
where both the dynamic control objective and also the main reasons that the plant person-
other non-quadratic economic objectives are nel are reluctant to employ the modern control
integrated together in the controller. techniques.
3. Closed-loop data-driven modeling. Modeling Besides careful design and testing of the con-
is the first and foremost important step in troller and training of the plant personnel, a
advanced controller design. In most of the possible way to directly ensure the reliability
studies, the researchers focused on the control of the system is keeping the well-assessed SISO
algorithm, but failed to consider the model PID loops present in the control structure. Thus,
development. In many of their works, the the new control system could be disconnected at
results are relying on the availability of the anytime, without compromising the plant safety.
nonlinear analytical model. However, con- In this case, study of bumpless switchover mech-
sidering the complexity of real FFPP, it is anism between advanced controller and PID
difficult to develop an accurate analytical model controller could be made.
without the knowledge of thermodynamics

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in parts by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under
Grant 51036002, Grant 11190015 and Grant 51306082, the Doctoral Fund of the Ministry of Education of
China under Grant 20130092110061, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China under Grant
BK20141119, the Cooperative Innovation Foundation of Jiangsu Province-Prospective Joint Research Project
under Grant BY2013073-07 and the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant ECCS 0801440.
REFERENCES
1. Flynn D, ed. Thermal Power Plant Simulation and 15. Lee KY, Van Sickel JH, Hoffman JA, Jung W-H, Kim
Control. Stevenage, UK: IEE Press; 2003. S-H. Controller design for a large-scale ultra super
2. Souza GFM. Thermal Power Plant Performance Analy- critical once-through boiler power plant. IEEE Trans
sis. Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. Energy Conver 2010, 25:1063–1070.
16. Fei W, Li Y, Shen J, Xiang X. Optimization of
3. Gilman GF, Boiler control system engineering, ISA,
superheated steam temperature control system using
Research Triangle Park, USA, 2005.
extremum seeking algorithm. J Southeast Univ 2010,
4. Raja AK, Srivastava AP, Dwivedi M. Power Plant Engi- 40:952–956.
neering. New Delhi: New Age International Publishers;
17. Li S, Liu H, Cai WJ, Soh YC, Xie LH. A new coordinated
2006.
control strategy for boiler-turbine system of coal-fired
5. Lindsey D. Power-Plant Control and Instrumentation: power plant. IEEE Trans Contr Syst Technol 2005, 13:
The Control of Boilers and HRSG Systems. Stevenage, 943–954.
UK: IEE Press; 2000. 18. Garduno-Ramirez R, Lee KY. Fuzzy gain-scheduling
6. Quazza G, Ferrari E. Role of power station control in PID+decoupling control for power plant wide-range
overall system operation. In: Proceedings of Symposium operation. In: Proceedings of International Conference
on Real-Time Control of Electric Power Systems, Baden, on Intelligent Systems Application to Power Systems,
Switzerland, 215–257, 1972. Kaohsing, Taiwan, November 5–8, 233–238, 2007.
7. Russell T. Utility front end controls. Instrument Society 19. Garduno-Ramirez R, Lee KY. Power plant fuzzy PID
of America, paper #88-0418, 113–122, 1988. scheduling control over full operating space. In: Pro-
ceedings of the International Conference on Intel-
8. Landis R, Wulfsohn E. The control philosophy for a unit
ligent System Application to Power Systems (ISAP
control system for co-ordinated operation of a boiler
2003), CD ISAP03-086.pdf, Lemnos, Greece, August
and turbine. Electron 1988, February:19–23.
31–September 3, 2003.
9. Gery HC. The evolution of coordinated control. Instru-
20. Zames G. Feedback and optimal sensitivity: model
ment Society of America, paper #88-0417, 109–112,
reference transformations, multiplicative seminorms,
1988.
and approximate inverses. IEEE Trans Autom Control
10. Babcock & Wilcox. Chapter 41: Controls for fossil 1981, 26:301–320.
fuel-fired steam generating plants. In: Steam: Its Gener- 21. Doyleand JC, Stein G. Multivariable feedback design:
ation and Use. 40th ed. New York: Babcock & Wilcox; concepts for a classical/modern synthesis. IEEE Trans
1992. Autom Control 1981, 26:4–16.
11. Zhang S, Taft CW, Bentsman J, Hussey A, Petrus B. 22. Zhao H, Li W, Taft C, Bentsman J. Robust controller
Simultaneous gains tuning in boiler/turbine PID-based design for simultaneous control of throttle pressure and
controller clusters using iterative feedback tuning megawatt output in a power plant unit. In: Proceedings
methodology. ISA Trans 2012, 51:609–621. of the 1999 IEEE International Conference on Control
12. Garduno-Ramirez R, Lee KY. Compensation of Applications, 802–807, Kohala Coast, HI August 1999.
control-loop interaction for power plant wide-range 23. Bentsman J, Zheng K, Taft CW. Advance boiler/turbine
operation. Control Eng Pract 2005, 13:1475–1487. control and its benchmarking in a coal-fired power
13. Heo JS, Lee KY. A multi-agent system-based intelligent plant. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual Joint ISA
heuristic optimal control system for a large-scale power POWID/EPRI Controls and Instrumentation Confer-
plant. In: Proceedings of the IEEE World Congress on ence, Colorado Springs, CO, June 2004.
Computational Intelligence, Vancouver, Canada, July 24. Pellegrinetti G, Bentsman J. H∞ controller design for
16–21, 5693–5700, 2006. boilers. Int J Robust Nonlin Cont 1994, 4:645–671.
14. Dimeo R, Lee KY. Boiler-turbine control system design 25. Najimi E, Ramezani MH. Robust control of speed and
using a genetic algorithm. IEEE Trans Energy Conver temperature in a power plant gas turbine. ISA Trans
1995, 10:752–759. 2012, 51:304–308.

26. Nademiand H, Tahami F. Robust controller design for 41. Moelbak T. Advanced control of superheater steam
governing steam turbine power generators. In: Interna- temperatures—an evaluation based on practical appli-
tional Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems, cations. Control Eng Pract 1999, 7:1–10.
Tokyo, Japan, November 2009. 42. Wu J, Shen J, Krug M, Nguang SK, Li Y. GA-based non-
27. Tan W, Niu Y, Liu J. H∞ control for a boiler-turbine linear predictive switching control for a boiler-turbine
unit. In: Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE International system. J Contr Theor Applicat 2012, 10:100–106.
Conference on Control Applications, 910–914, Kohala 43. Prasad G, Swidenbank E, Hogg BW. A neural net
Coast, HI August 1999. model-based multivariable long-range predictive con-
28. Tan W, Marquez HJ, Chen T. Multivariable robust control strategy applied in thermal power plant control.
troller design for a boiler system. IEEE Trans Control IEEE Trans Energy Conver 1998, 13:176–182.
Syst Technol 2002, 10:735–742. 44. Ma L, Ge Y, Cao X. Superheated steam temperature
29. Zheng K, Bentsman J, Taft CW. Full operating range control based on improved recurrent neural network
robust hybrid control of a coal-fired boiler/turbine and simplified PSO algorithm. App Mech Mat 2012,
unit. J Dyn Syst Meas Control 2008, 130:041011-1– 128-129:1065–1069.
041011-14. 45. Lee KY, Ma L, Boo C, Jung W, Kim S. Intelligent
30. Wu J, Nguang SK, Shen J, Liu G, Li Y. Robust H∞ modified predictive optimal control of reheater steam
tracking control of boiler–turbine systems. ISA Trans temperature in a large-scale boiler unit. In: 2009 IEEE
2010, 49:369–375. Power Engineering Society General Meeting, Calgary,
Canada, 2009.
31. Liu S, Liu X, Shen J, Li Y, Wu J. Design of tracking
controller for coordinated boiler-turbine control system 46. Ma L, Ge Y, Lee KY. An improved predictive optimal
based on fuzzy Lyapunov functions. Proc CSEE 2013, controller with elastic search space for STC of a LSSPU.
33:96–103. In: 51th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control,
Maui, TX, 7024–7029, 2012.
32. Park Y, Choi M, Lee J, Kim B, Lee KY. An auxiliary
LQG/LTR robust controller design for cogeneration 47. Lee KY, Heo JS, Hoffman JA, Kim S, Jung W. Modified
plants. IEEE Trans Energy Conver 1995, 11:407–413. predictive optimal control using neural network-based
combined model for large-scale power plants. In: 2007
33. Weng C, Ray A. Robust wide-range control of IEEE PES General Meeting, Tampa, FL, 2007.
steam-electric power plants. IEEE Trans Control
Syst Technol 1997, 5:74–88. 48. Peng H, Ozaki T, Haggan-Ozaki V, Toyoda Y. A
nonlinear exponential ARX model-based multivari-
34. Qin SJ, Badgwell TA. A survey of industrial model able generalized predictive control strategy for thermal
predictive control technology. Control Eng Pract 2003, power plants. IEEE Trans Control Syst Technol 2002,
11:733–764. 10:256–262.
35. Moon U, Lee KY. Step-response model development for 49. Liu X, Guan P, Chan CW. Nonlinear multivariable
dynamic matrix control of a drum-type boiler-turbine power plant coordinate control by constrained pre-
system. IEEE Trans Energy Conver 2009, 24:423–430. dictive scheme. IEEE Trans Contr Sys Technol 2010,
36. Sanchez-Lopez A, Arroyo-Figueroa G, Villavicencio- 18:1116–1125.
Ramirez A. Advanced control algorithms for steam 50. Murray-Smith R, Johansen TA. Multiple Model
temperature regulation of thermal power plants. Electr Approaches to Modeling and Control. London, UK:
Power Energy Syst 2004, 26:779–785. Taylor & Francis; 1997.
37. Kim W, Moon U, Lee KY, Jung W, Kim S. 51. Prasad G, Swidenbank E, Hogg BW. A local model net-
Once-through boiler steam temperature control using works based multivariable long-range predictive control
Dynamic Matrix Control technique. In: 2010 IEEE strategy for thermal power plants. Automatica 1998,
PES General Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, 2010. 34:1185–1204.
38. Karampoorian HR, Mohseni R. Generalized model 52. Hou G, Liu H, Sun Y, Zhang J. Multi-model predic-
predictive control for a multivariable boiler-turbine tive function control based on neural network and its
unit. In: 11th International Conference on Control, application to the coordinated control system of power
Automation and Systems, Kintex, Korea, 811–814, plants. In: 2010 Chinese Control and Decision Confer-
2011. ence, Xuzhou, China, 3950–3954, 2010.
39. Hou G, Xi Y, Liu J, Zhang J. Simulation research of 53. Wang D, Huang B, Meng L, Han P. Predictive con-
the multi-variable generalized predictive control in 500 trol for boiler-turbine unit using ANFIS. In: 2009 Inter-
MW Unit Plant Coordinated Control System. In: 2011 national Conference on Test and Measurement, Hong
International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Kong, China, 2009.
Systems, Zhengzhou, China, 196–201, 2011. 54. Moon U, Lee KY. An adaptive dynamic matrix con-
40. Hogg BW, El-Rabaie NM. Multivariable generalized trol with fuzzy-interpolated step-response model for a
predictive control of a boiler system. IEEE Trans Energ drum-type boiler-turbine system. IEEE Trans Energy
Conver 1991, 6:282–288. Conver 2011, 26:393–401.

55. Liu XJ, Chan CW. Neuro-fuzzy generalized predictive of the 31st Chinese Control Conference, Hefei, China,
control of boiler steam temperature. IEEE Trans Energy July 25–27, 2012.
Conver 2006, 21:900–908. 69. Lee KY, Heo JS, Hoffman JA, Kim S, Jung W. Neural
56. Liu X, Liu J. Constrained power plant coordinated pre- network-based modeling for a large-scale power plant.
dictive control using neurofuzzy model. Acta Automat- In: 2007 IEEE PES General Meeting, Tampa, FL, 2007.
ica Sinica 2006, 32:785–790. 70. Ghezelayagh H, Lee KY. Intelligent predictive control
57. Novak J, Chalupa P. Predictive control of a of a power plant with evolutionary programming opti-
boiler-turbine system. In: 16th WSEAS Interna- mizer and neuro-fuzzy identifier. In: Proceedings of the
tional Conference on Circuits and Systems, Kos Island, 2002 Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2002,
Greece, 2012. 2:1308–1313.
58. Hlava J, Hubka L, Tuma L. Modeling and predic- 71. Heo JS, Lee KY, Garduno-Ramirez R. Multiobjective
tive control of a nonlinear power plant reheater with control of power plants using particle swarm opti-
switched dynamics. In: 16th International Conference mization techniques. IEEE Trans Energy Conver 2006,
on Methods and Models in Automation and Robotics, 21:552–561.
Miedzyzdroje, Poland, 284–289, 2011. 72. Ma L, Lin Y, Lee KY, Superheater steam tempera-
59. Keshavarz M, Barkhordari Yazdi M, Jahed-Motlagh ture control for a 300 MW boiler unit with inverse
MR. Piecewise affine modeling and control of a dynamic process models. In: 2010 IEEE Power Engi-
boiler-turbine unit. Appl Therm Eng 2010, 30: neering Society General Meeting, Minneapolis, MN,
781–791. 2010.
60. Wu K, Zhang T, Lv J, Xiang W. Model predictive 73. Lee KY, Ma L, Boo CJ, Jung WH, Kim SH. Inverse
control for nonlinear boiler-turbine system based on dynamic neuro-controller for superheater steam temper-
fuzzy gain scheduling. In: Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE ature control of a large-scale ultra super critical (USC)
International Conference on Automation and Logistics, boiler unit. In: Proceedings of the IFAC Symposium
1115–1120, 2008. on Power Plants and Power Systems Control, Tampere,
Finland, July 5–8, 2009.
61. Li Y, Shen J, Lee KY, Liu X. Offset-free fuzzy model
74. Takagi T, Sugeno M. Fuzzy identification of systems and
predictive control of a boiler-turbine system based on
its application to modeling and control. IEEE Trans Syst
genetic algorithm. Simul Model Pract Theory 2012,
Man Cybern 1985, 15:116–132.
26:77–95.
75. Wu X, Shen J, Li Y, Lee KY. Data-driven modeling
62. Liu XJ, Kong XB. Nonlinear fuzzy model predictive
and predictive control for boiler-turbine unit using
iterative learning control for drum-type boiler-turbine
fuzzy clustering and subspace methods. ISA Trans 2014,
system. J Process Control 2013, 23:1023–1040.
53:699–708.
63. Wu X, Shen J, Li Y. Control of boiler-turbine coordi- 76. Liu X, Chai T. Fuzzy logic strategy on boiler control
nated system using multiple-model predictive approach. problem. In: Proceedings of the 1997 American Control
In: 2010 8th IEEE International Conference on Control Conference, 1264–1265, Albuquerque, NM, June 44–6,
and Automation (ICCA), Xiamen, China, June 9–11, 1997.
2010.
77. Chang J, Lee KY, Garduno-Ramirez R. Multiagent con-
64. Wu X, Shen J, Li Y, Lee KY. Stable model predic- trol system for a fossil-fuel power unit. In: 2003 IEEE
tive control based on TS fuzzy model with application Power Engineering Society General Meeting, Toronto,
to boiler-turbine coordinated system. In: Proceedings Canada, July 13–17, 2003.
of the 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Con-
78. Moon U, Lee KY. A boiler-turbine system con-
trol and European Control Conference (CDC-ECC),
trol using a fuzzy auto-regressive moving average
3356–3361, 2011.
(FARMA) model. IEEE Trans Energ Conver 2003, 18:
65. Wu X, Shen J, Li Y, Lee KY. Stable model predictive 142–148.
tracking control for boiler-turbine coordinated control
79. Head JD, Gomes JR, Williams CS, Lee KY. Implemen-
system. IFAC Proc 2012, 8:201–206 8th Power Plant
tation of a multi-agent system for optimized multiob-
and Power System Control Symposium, PPPSC 2012.
jective power plant control. In: 2010 North American
66. Wu X, Shen J, Li Y, Lee KY. Hierarchical optimization Power Symposium, Arlington, TX, September 26–28,
of boiler-turbine unit using fuzzy stable model predic- 2010.
tive control. Control Eng Pract 2014, 30:112–123. 80. Lee KY, Head JD, Gomes JR, Williams CS. Multi-agent
67. Lee KY. Intelligent techniques applied to power plant system based intelligent distributed control system
control. In: 2006 IEEE Power Engineering Society for power plants, In: 2011 IEEE Power Engineer-
General Meeting, Montreal, Canada, 2006. ing Society General Meeting, Detroit, MI, July 24–28,
68. Ma L, Ge Y. Superheated steam temperature predictive 2011.
optimal control based on external time-delay BP neural 81. Heo JS, Lee KY, Garduno-Ramirez R. Dynamic mul-
network and a simpler PSO algorithm. In: Proceedings tiobjective optimization of power plant using PSO

techniques. In: 2005 IEEE Power Engineering Soci- Proceedings of the IEEE Power Engineering Society
ety General Meeting, San Francisco, CA, July 12–17, General Meeting, San Francisco, CA, June 12–17, 2005.
2005. 87. ZOLO Technologies. Coal power plant combus-
82. Zhou H, Cen K, Fan J. Modeling and optimization of tion optimization. Available at: http://zolotech.com/
the NOx emission characteristics of a tangentially fired power-generation/coal-power-plant-efficiency/.
boiler with artificial neural networks. Energy 2004, (Accessed December 2013).
29:167–183. 88. SIEMENS Power Plant Automation. SPPA-P3000
83. Lv Y, Liu J, Yang T. Nonlinear PLS integrated solutions for process optimization. Available at: http://
with error-based LSSVM and its application to www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/automation/power-
NOx modeling. Ind Eng Chem Res 2012, 51: generation/sppa-p3000/. (Accessed February 2014).
16092–16100. 89. KWU LPSC Technology Center. PROFI unit coordi-
84. Lv Y, Liu J, Yang T, Zeng D. A novel least squares nated control system, Siemens AG, 2000.
support vector machine ensemble model for NOx emis- 90. EMERSON Process Management. Smart process
sion prediction of a coal-fired boiler. Energy 2013, optimization solutions. Available at: http://www2.
55:319–329. emersonprocess.com/en-us/brands/smartprocess/pages/
85. Lee KY, Velas JP, Kim BH. Development of an index.aspx. (Accessed March 2014).
intelligent monitoring system with high temperature 91. ABB. OPTIMAX, plant optimization solutions for
distributed fiber-optic sensor for fossil fuel power plant. power generation. Available at: http://www05.abb.com/
In: Proceedings of the IEEE Power Engineering Society global/scot/scot267.nsf/veritydisplay/e15f7798384e6f
General Meeting, PESGM2004-001350.PDF, Denver, 02852573a3004c9a5a/$file/plant_optimization_s_
CO, June 6–10, 2004. deabb_1291_06_e.pdf. (Accessed May 2014).
86. Kim BH, Velas JP, Lee KY. Development of intelligent 92. Honeywell. Honeywell UES. Available at: https://
monitoring system for fossil-fuel power plants using www.honeywell.com. (Accessed March 2014).
system type neural networks and semigroup theory. In:

TPS Review Kwang

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

TPS Review Kwang

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Advanced Review

Steam power plant conﬁguration,

This article provides an overview of fossil-fuel power plant (FFPP) conﬁgura-

How to cite this article:

INTRODUCTION will not change in a foreseeable future. For this reason,

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1. The growth of electric power demand increases

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

FIGURE 1 | Simpliﬁed coal-ﬁred subcritical power plant (Picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_power_station#Boiler_furnace_

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Carbon Feed Feed water

Feed water Feed water Deaerator

FIGURE 2 | Simpliﬁed supercritical power plant (Picture from

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Boiler main Turbine main

Boiler Governor valve Generator

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

quantity signal M is used in the inner loop to rapidly

M = D + Cb dpb ∕dt, (1)

where, D is the steam flow rate representing the heat

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Super heater Steam flow D

FIGURE 9 | Operation regions of superheater steam temperature

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Attemperator when the controller parameters are well tuned,

PI2 PI1 Therefore, various advanced control strategies

The Drawbacks of the Conventional Control Advanced PI/PID Control

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PID controller FFPP

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PID_1 PID_2 ... PID_n

FIGURE 12 | Gain Scheduling PID control.

W1(s) W2(s) W3(s) d

FIGURE 13 | Block diagram of a typical H ∞ mixed sensitivity problem.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

into a matrix inequality involving the input vector. As

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Global model Power load Weight

+ FIGURE 15 | Control diagram of

Intelligent Control (such as BP or RBF neural networks) with tapped

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Therefore, by introducing a natural selection mecha-

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

of the fuzzy model, which is composed by current and

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Você também pode gostar