Petersburg Polytech: A solution to automate the calculation of CHP equipment to find the optimal operating mode

Main article: Digital lookalike

2023: Presentation of software to increase the margin income of the CHP

At St. Petersburg Polytechnic, Candidate of Technical Sciences Irina Anikina developed software that will help increase the margin income of thermal power plants. The university announced this on November 27, 2023.

All optimization calculations are based on digital counterparts of CHPP equipment. The program can be used by personnel at the thermal power plant, as well as in the management of the generating company.

As a rule, Russian thermal power plants have been in operation for 40-60 years and during this time they have acquired a fleet of various generating equipment with different efficiency. An urgent task for the plant is to maintain the most efficient mode of generating thermal and electric energy to meet the needs of consumers. The criterion for optimizing the operating modes of the CHPP is an increase in the marginal income of the plant. We propose to solve this problem on the basis of digital twins, - said Irina Anikina.

The developed twin is a digital test site where you can study the technical and economic indicators of the station in different operating modes with different equipment loads. The use of digital twins does not eliminate the need for a series of scenario calculations in order to find the optimal operating mode, but allows you to reduce the time for finding the optimal operating mode by hundreds of times.

The essence of the program is as follows: using digital twins, the actual energy characteristics of the equipment are built, the use of which makes it possible to determine the optimal order of the equipment loading sequence. The optimization algorithm includes uploading model files, mode and script, conversion before calculation, calling the calculation module, starting calculations, searching for the optimal result, recording information about the optimal calculation.

Maintaining an optimal plant mode for a given load and taking into account the cost of the final product does not require additional investment and leads to cost savings and an increase in the profit of the generating company.

The written software was previously tested on digital counterparts of South TETs-22 and Vasileostrovskaya TETs-7 of PJSC TGK-1. The results of calculations made with the help of the developed program showed that the redistribution of the heat load between the power units of South TETs-22 (with the constant output capacity) will lead to savings of 2.5% of fuel (for the daily operating mode), which is equivalent to 26.3 million rubles. per month.

For TETs-7, it was shown that taking into account the price conditions of 2021, the transfer of the station to a generator-free operation in the summer will lead to losses of 14 million rubles. per year compared to work in a deteriorated vacuum mode, and reducing the pressure in the feedwater deaerator to 5 atmospheres in the winter operation of the plant will save 67 m3 of natural gas per hour or 1.9 million rubles per year.

To reduce the timing of future optimization tasks, the project team has already developed digital twins of more than 20 models of typical generating equipment used at the Russian CHP. By the end of the year, it is planned to cover all generating equipment common in Russia.