METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR ENHANCING OPERATION OF POWER PLANT GENERATING UNITS

摘要

A system (10) including a power plant (12,302,501) having thermal generating units that operate according to multiple possible operating modes, which are differentiated by a unique operational or maintenance schedule. The system (10) further includes a hardware processor (82) and machine readable storage medium on which is stored instructions that cause the hardware processor (82) to execute a process related to optimizing the operational or maintenance schedule during a selected operating period. The process may include: receiving the selected operating period; selecting competing operating modes for the power plant (12,302,501) during the selected operating period according to a selection criteria; simulating the operation of the power plant (12,302,501) during the selected operating period for each of the competing operating modes and deriving simulation results therefrom; evaluating each of the simulation results pursuant to a cost function and, based thereupon, designating at least one of the competing operating modes as an optimized operating mode.