Intelligent Sootblowing Paired with Innovative Steam Control Aids Plant Uprate Project

摘要

An Australian power plant, burning bituminous coal, began an uprate project to increase the unit’s generation output far beyond its designed maximum continuous rating of 330 MW. Following the main portion of the project, the boiler was successfully able to operate at higher loads; however, increased fouling in the pendant surfaces and furnace walls, so that sustained, increased generation output could be realized. After evaluating the plant’s needs, a systems approach to boiler cleaning was taken. Diamond Power installed a comprehensive boiler cleaning system at the plant consisting of four interlocking initiatives. To increase cleaning intensity capability in the most problematic of pendant areas, six advanced PrecisionClean~? blowers replaced some of the existing long retractable blowers. Secondly, heat flux sensors along with intelligent sootblowing controls, were installed for furnace cleaning. For the third portion, the convection region used thermodynamic modeling to automatically operate the long retractable blowers. Finally Diamond Power installed the first ever application of adaptive variable steam header control in the power industry. This system controls the sootblowing steam headers by varying a cleaning parameter, such as steam flow, during a blower’s travel. On top of this, the system uses a closed loop algorithm to adapt steam flow profiles to ensure optimal cleaning success with minimal steam usage. All of these enhancements were built to interface seamlessly with the plant’s existing DCS sootblowing system. Thus operators are able to continue to control manual sootblowing and now intelligent sootblowing from their DCS. The new boiler cleaning system enabled the plant to maintain the desired load and to increase its cleanliness and performance. The results and experiences at this plant are discussed in this paper.