The Facilitation of a Sustainable Power System: A Practice from Data-Driven Enhanced Boiler Control

Zhenlong Wu, Ting He, Li Sun, Donghai Li and Yali Xue
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Zhenlong Wu: State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Ting He: State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Li Sun: Key Lab of Energy Thermal Conversion and Control of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Donghai Li: State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Yali Xue: State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: An increasing penetration of renewable energy may bring significant challenges to a power system due to its inherent intermittency. To achieve a sustainable future for renewable energy, a conventional power plant is required to be able to change its power output rapidly for a grid balance purpose. However, the rapid power change may result in the boiler operating in a dangerous manner. To this end, this paper aims to improve boiler control performance via a data-driven control strategy, namely Active Disturbance Rejection Control (ADRC). For practical implementation, a tuning method is developed for ADRC controller parameters to maximize its potential in controlling a boiler operating in different conditions. Based on a Monte Carlo simulation, a Probabilistic Robustness (PR) index is subsequently formulated to represent the controller’s sensitivity to the varying conditions. The stability region of the ADRC controller is depicted to provide the search space in which the optimal group of parameters is searched for based on the PR index. Illustrative simulations are performed to verify the efficacy of the proposed method. Finally, the proposed method is experimentally applied to a boiler’s secondary air control system successfully. The results of the field application show that the proposed ADRC based on PR can ensure the expected control performance even though it works in a wider range of operating conditions. The field application depicts a promising future for the ADRC controller as an alternative solution in the power industry to integrate more renewable energy into the power grid.

Keywords: Active Disturbance Rejection Control; Probabilistic Robustness; Monte Carlo; secondary air regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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