Some thoughts on the advanced control of electric power plants

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been considerable change in the electric power generation industry. Larger, faster plants have been constructed and old plants have been forced to operate in a much more dynamic environment, thanks to strong competition and market forces. Massive changes have also occurred in information technology, designed to improve power plant performance, by including large amounts of computing and digital circuits, together with very advanced man-machine interface tools, allowing efficient information retrieval and display at reasonable cost. By contrast, the control systems implemented in the distributed control computer systems remain largely conventional control, a mix of various types of PID control and feedforward, which is not at all what is thought of as advanced control. This paper looks at this issue, and describes some of the advanced controllers that might be very effective in the industry, including many that are being offered to the industry by the control vendor companies. The paper then tries to give reasons why these systems have not been taken up in any significant way, and by using examples from our own experience, attempts to suggest how the situation might be improved.