China Energy’s National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy(NICE)is developing a Power Plant Smart Management(PPSM)platform that employs digital-twin technology to undertake techno-economic modelling analysis on...China Energy’s National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy(NICE)is developing a Power Plant Smart Management(PPSM)platform that employs digital-twin technology to undertake techno-economic modelling analysis on China Energy’s existing coal-fired power-plant units and explore cost-effective solutions to improve those plant units’thermal efficiencies and operating performance.This paper presents a case study of PPSM on a 320-MWe coal-fired thermal power-plant unit,demonstrating how the digital-twin technology was employed to explore and analyse optimization solutions.Various optimization solutions and their cost-effectiveness were assessed using the digital-twin-modelling analysis;the results indicated the optimization solutions are expected to improve the plant unit’s operating efficiency and reduce its current electricity-generation coal consumption by up to 3.5 g/kWh standard coal equivalent(sce),worth annual fuel-cost savings of approximately 4 million RMB for a single unit or 8 million RMB for the two identical 320-MWe units that the power plant currently operates.The digital twin was also employed to assess the power-plant unit’s operating economics during both summer and winter.In summer,when the unit operates in electricity-generation-only mode,the unit’s operating thermal efficiency could drop by up to 6%points following the grid demand of load changes from 100%maximum continuous rating(MCR)down to 30% MCR,resulting in an~45 RMB/MWh increase of electricity-generation cost.In winter,when the unit operates in combined heat and power(CHP)cogeneration mode,for the same boiler load,the CHP operation increases the plant unit’s operating profit with increasing district-heating duty,although the relative profit gain from the CHP cogeneration could start to decrease when the district-heating steam-extraction flow increases to a certain point that varies depending on the market prices of heat and electricity,while the fuel cost was found to be equivalent to~50% of the unit’s total CHP income cogenerated from its electricity and district heat outputs.展开更多
文摘China Energy’s National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy(NICE)is developing a Power Plant Smart Management(PPSM)platform that employs digital-twin technology to undertake techno-economic modelling analysis on China Energy’s existing coal-fired power-plant units and explore cost-effective solutions to improve those plant units’thermal efficiencies and operating performance.This paper presents a case study of PPSM on a 320-MWe coal-fired thermal power-plant unit,demonstrating how the digital-twin technology was employed to explore and analyse optimization solutions.Various optimization solutions and their cost-effectiveness were assessed using the digital-twin-modelling analysis;the results indicated the optimization solutions are expected to improve the plant unit’s operating efficiency and reduce its current electricity-generation coal consumption by up to 3.5 g/kWh standard coal equivalent(sce),worth annual fuel-cost savings of approximately 4 million RMB for a single unit or 8 million RMB for the two identical 320-MWe units that the power plant currently operates.The digital twin was also employed to assess the power-plant unit’s operating economics during both summer and winter.In summer,when the unit operates in electricity-generation-only mode,the unit’s operating thermal efficiency could drop by up to 6%points following the grid demand of load changes from 100%maximum continuous rating(MCR)down to 30% MCR,resulting in an~45 RMB/MWh increase of electricity-generation cost.In winter,when the unit operates in combined heat and power(CHP)cogeneration mode,for the same boiler load,the CHP operation increases the plant unit’s operating profit with increasing district-heating duty,although the relative profit gain from the CHP cogeneration could start to decrease when the district-heating steam-extraction flow increases to a certain point that varies depending on the market prices of heat and electricity,while the fuel cost was found to be equivalent to~50% of the unit’s total CHP income cogenerated from its electricity and district heat outputs.
