Real-Time Thermodynamic Performance Monitoring and Optimum Thermoeconomic Operation of Power Plants

The ability of modern power plant data acquisition systems to provide a continuous real-time data feed can be exploited to carry out interesting research studies. In the first part of this study, real-time data from a power plant is used to carry out a comprehensive heat balance calculation. The calculation involves application of the first law of thermodynamics to each powerhouse component. Stoichiometric combustion principles are applied to calculate emissions from fossil fuel consuming components. Exergy analysis is carried out for all components by the combined application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. In the second part of this study, techniques from the field of System Identification and Linear Programming are brought together in finding thermoeconomically optimum plant operating conditions one step ahead in time. This is done by first using autoregressive models to make short-term predictions of plant inputs and outputs. Then, parameter estimation using recursive least squares is used to determine the relations between the predicted inputs and outputs. The estimated parameters are used in setting up a linear programming problem which is solved using the simplex method. The end result is knowledge of thermoeconomically optimum plant inputs and outputs one step ahead in time.