Adaptive control for the steam temperature of thermal power plants

An adaptive control system was applied to control the steam temperature of utility boilers. In the control system, an adaptive control strategy is embedded on the DCS controllers in parallel with each conventional PID controllers for the boiler. The authors have successfully implemented the proposed system at Chubu Electric Power's Nishi-Nagoya No.3 unit and Owase-Mita No.l unit for controlling the main and reheat steam temperatures. The control improvement takes the form of reduced magnitude of temperature excursions caused by load changes, especially in the reheated steam temperature.