Higher Level Production Control of Opencast Mines and Power Plants in the Rhenish Lignite Mining Area

摘要

In the Rhenish lignite mining area of the Federal Republic of Germany, RWE Rheinbraun extracts some 100 million tons of lignite, generates 75 terawatt hours of power and produces 4 million tons of refined products each year. The company's power output thus covers 15% of total demand in Germany. RWE Rheinbraun responded to the liberalization of the power market by implementing a systematic efficiency enhancement and cost cutting program. Within less than five years, costs were cut by 30% and, in this way, the preconditions established for competitive lignite mining and lignite-based power generation in the long term. Along the entire value chain, the organizational procedures in the company were geared to a systematic process control. The holistic consideration of the process yielded a complex supply strategy, which today is a prerequisite for power plant operation with low failure rates. On this basis, an integrated production planning and control system was installed which allowed comprehensive measures in the fields of planning, operational organization and control as well as operating technology and equipment to be implemented. Lignite mining is geared to the individual power plant boilers' and refining operations' consumption options in terms of the different coal qualities. In addition, this approach achieves high utilization factors for the deposit and the excavators working in the opencast mines, thus allowing to cut costs. Cost reduction, efficiency enhancement and systematic orientation towards the liberalized power market make RWE Rheinbraun a cost leader in base load power generation.