Abstract
A nuclear heating reactor (NHR) is a typical integral pressurized water reactor (iPWR) with advanced design features such as an integral primary circuit, self-pressurization, full-power-range natural circulation, and hydraulic control rods. Through adjusting its electric power output according to the variation of demand, NHR power plants can be adopted to stablize the fluctuation of grid frequency caused by the intermittent nature of renewable generation, which is useful for deepening the penetration of renewables. The flexibility of an NHR power plant relies on the automatic generation control (AGC) function of the plant coordination control system, whose central is the AGC law. In this paper, the plant control system with AGC function is designed for NHR plants, where the AGC is realized based on the stabilizers of grid frequency and main steam pressure. Then, the AGC problem is transferred to the disturbance attenuation problem of a second-order dynamic system, and an active disturbance attenuation control (ADRC), which is just the addition of a feedback control given by a proportional‒integral (PI) law and a feedforward control driven by a disturbance observer (DO), is then proposed. Finally, this ADRC is applied to realize the AGC function for NHR-200II reactor power plant, and numerical simulation results show the implementation feasibility and satisfactory performance.
Highlights
Due to their zero marginal cost of electricity production, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are regarded as important contributors to the world electric power provision
The nuclear heating reactor (NHR) developed by INET, Tsinghua University is a typical integral pressurized water reactor (iPWR) with inherent safety features such as self-pressurization, full-power-range natural circulation, and hydraulic control rods
Due to its high level of nuclear safety, it can be adopted to balance the supply and demand of electric power for deepening the penetration of renewable energy resources such wind and solar, which result in the development of nuclear hybrid energy systems (NHESs)
Summary
Due to their zero marginal cost of electricity production, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are regarded as important contributors to the world electric power provision. Nuclear power plants (NPPs) can provide consistent electricity while requiring much less land [1]. To balance the power supply and demand in the context of deep renewable penetration, it is necessary to provide enough backup flexibility, which can be provided on a large scale by burning fossil fuels or nuclear fission reactions. One of the key techniques in developing NHESs is the flexibility of NPPs, which refers to the capability of adjusting the plant electric power output according to demand, and can further deepen the penetration of renewables through reducing their curtailment. It has been shown that the flexibility of NPPs is realizable if the limitations in axial power offset, fuel integrity, fission product poisoning, and temperature variation are all well satisfied [2], and is a crucial factor in maximizing the profit of producers [3,4].
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