CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2018-0152751, filed on Nov. 30, 2018, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a system for controlling a boiler apparatus in a power plant to ensure combust under optimized conditions, and a method for optimizing combustion of the boiler apparatus using the same and, more particularly to a system and method for calculating an optimum control value or a set point for optimizing combustion of a boiler.

2. Description of the Related Art

A thermal power plant has a boiler therein to heat water by using an exothermic reaction generated when burning fuel such as coal or the like, thereby producing steam for driving a turbine. When a combustion occurs in the boiler, emissions such as nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide are generated. In recent years, the combustion environment is controlled to generate less emission because an operation of the power plant requires considerable cost to manage such emissions, and efforts are being made to increase the combustion efficiency of boilers.

In a related art thermal power plant, a boiler control, that is, a combustion control, has been performed, by a skilled expert by adjusting combustion environment parameters of a boiler with reference to performance test data during a trial run, and then starting a boiler operation. In addition, after the boiler operation has been started, the combustion control is performed by fine-tuning an offset value. Therefore, according to the related art boiler operating method, because it is not easy to control the boiler in an optimum combustion state when the boiler is operating, stable combustion control for the stability of the boiler has been given more priority than the optimum control thereof. There has been a problem in the related art that the optimum combustion environment of a boiler could not be properly implemented.

In order to solve the problem, studies have been made to optimize combustion control of a boiler by automatically acquiring and analyzing operating data of the boiler in real time and automatically adjusting various control variables of the boiler according to the analyzed result.

SUMMARY

Aspects of one or more exemplary embodiments provide a system and method for controlling a boiler in a power plant to calculate an optimum set point for a control object in the boiler to maximize the combustion efficiency of the boiler while minimizing the generation of emissions including nitrogen oxides and carbon oxides.

Aspects of one or more exemplary embodiments provide a method for controlling the combustion environment of a boiler in a power plant by applying an artificial intelligence algorithm for boiler combustion control so that a most suitable model for boiler combustion is generated through self-learning and modeling to calculate an optimum set point required for controlling the combustion environment with reference to the generated model.

Additional aspects will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will become apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the exemplary embodiments.

According to an aspect of an exemplary embodiment, there is provided a system for a combustion optimization operation for a boiler, the system including: a modeler configured to create a boiler combustion model; an optimizer configured to receive the boiler combustion model from the modeler and perform the combustion optimization operation for the boiler using the boiler combustion model to calculate an optimum control value; and an output controller configured to receive the optimum control value from the optimizer, and control an operation of the boiler by reflecting the optimum control value to a boiler control logic.

The optimizer may perform the combustion optimization operation using a combustion optimization algorithm.

The optimizer may calculate a set point for at least one control object in the boiler by performing the combustion optimization operation, the combustion optimization operation using different logics depending on a purpose received from a user.

The purpose may include one of a cost optimization considering a cost as a top priority, an emission optimization considering an emission reduction as a top priority, and an equipment protection optimization considering an equipment protection as a top priority.

The combustion optimization operation may be performed according to a following objective function f,
f=Cobj1*(Factor 1)+Cobj2*(Factor 2)+Cobj3*(Factor 3),

where C is a weighted value for the purpose, and Factor is an equation for calculating a value for the purpose.

If the purpose is selected by the user, among a plurality of weighted values included in the objective function, a weighted value corresponding to the selected purpose may be set to a value greater than weighted values corresponding to the other purposes not selected by the user.

The weighted values corresponding to the purposes not selected by the user may be greater than zero.

The optimizer may be configured to collect at least one of operation data or state data of the boiler that is in operation, and determine whether to perform the combustion optimization operation for the boiler based on the at least one of operation data or state data.

The operation data may include at least one of a power generation output, a command value or an instantaneous value, and wherein the state data may include at least one of a fluctuation in a boiler output, a fuel fluctuation, a temperature or pressure in each component of the boiler.

The optimizer may determine whether to perform the combustion optimization operation for the boiler using at least one of an analysis method based on boiler operation data, an analysis method based on a state binary value, or an analysis method based on previously recorded and stored data from knowledge and experience of operators.

According to an aspect of another exemplary embodiment, there is provided a method for performing a combustion optimization operation on a boiler, the method including: creating a boiler combustion model; performing the combustion optimization operation using the created boiler combustion model to calculate an optimum control value; and controlling an operation of the boiler by reflecting the optimum control value to a boiler control logic.

The performing the combustion optimization operation may include calculating a set point for at least one control object in the boiler, the combustion optimization operation using different logics depending on a purpose received from a user.

The purpose may include one of a cost optimization considering a cost as a top priority, an emission optimization considering an emission reduction as a top priority, and an equipment protection optimization considering an equipment protection as a top priority.

The combustion optimization operation may be performed according to a following objective function f,
f=Cobj1*(Factor 1)+Cobj2*(Factor 2)+Cobj3*(Factor 3),

where C is a weighted value for the purpose, and Factor is an equation for calculating a value for the purpose.

If the purpose is selected by the user, among a plurality of weighted values included in the objective function, a weighted value corresponding to the selected purpose may be set to a value greater than weighted values corresponding to the other purposes not selected by the user.

The weighted values corresponding to the purposes not selected by the user may be greater than zero.

The method may further include: collecting at least one of operation data or state data of the boiler that is in operation; and determining whether to perform the combustion optimization operation for the boiler based on the at least one of operation data or state data.

The operation data may include at least one of a power generation output, a command value or an instantaneous value, and wherein the state data may include at least one of a fluctuation in a boiler output, a fuel fluctuation, a temperature or pressure in each component of the boiler.

According to an aspect of another exemplary embodiment, there is provided a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions of executing a method of optimizing a combustion optimization operation on a boiler, the method including: creating a boiler combustion model; performing the combustion optimization operation using the created boiler combustion model to calculate an optimum control value; and controlling an operation of the boiler by reflecting the optimum control value to a boiler control logic.

According to one or more exemplary embodiments, the combustion efficiency of the boiler in a power plant can be improved and the emissions causing environmental pollution can also be minimized, whereby the cost of treating the emissions can be significantly reduced, thereby significantly reducing the operating cost of the power plant.

In addition, one or more exemplary embodiments can control the boiler in an optimized combustion state with reference to the results learned by artificial intelligence, so that even unskilled workers can realize, without difficulty, a better combustion environment compared to what is obtained by a skilled expert in the related art.

