Diagnosis of the Operation of Power Plants

A system was developed to diagnose the operation of combined cycle power plants and to determine, when deviations are found, which components are causing the deviations and the impact of each component deviation. The system works by comparing the values of the actual operating variables with some reference values that are calculated by a model that was adjusted to the design heat balances. The model can use the actual values of the environmental parameters as well as the design values, so the effect of environmental changes can be quantified and separated. The determination of the individual equipment impacts is done by adjusting the equipment parameters in order to reproduce the values of the measured variables. The adjustment is done by varying the values of the characteristic parameters of the equipment in order to minimize the sum of the squares of the differences between the values of the measured variables and the calculated values from the model.