(293d) Model Predictive Control of an Entrained-Flow Gasifier for an IGCC Power Plant

Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is a promising technology that can produce electricity from coal in an environmentally friendly way. Korea is a resource-poor country importing 97% of its energy resources; 42% of the electricity is generated from coal. Therefore, it is important to build up an optimal mix of energy sources by introducing new thermal power generation systems based on coal and other fossil fuels. IGCC is considered to be an excellent choice for Korea due to its environment-friendliness and high efficiency. In Korea, a 300MW coal-based IGCC power plant is currently being constructed and it is expected to generate electricity from year 2017. Two more plants are in the planning stage. The expected thermal efficiency of the demonstration plant being constructed is 42% (HHV, net) and the targeted availability level is 85%.

Throughout the world, 17 IGCC power plants are currently in operation. Among them, 5 plants use coal as the main feedstock (Gasification Data Base 2010, NETL). The coal-based IGCC power plants show lower availability figures than the plants using other types of feedstock. Moreover, it is reported that a newly commissioned IGCC plant suffers from low availability for a number of years before achieving a normal level of availability. The forced outages by equipment failure are caused mainly by the gas turbine and the gasifier. The coal gasifier is perhaps the most important unit not only because it is prone to failures but also because its dynamic responses propagate through the entire plant and impact the performances of other units like the gas turbine. Therefore it is necessary to develop good understandings of the gasifier’s dynamic behavior in order to improve the whole plant’s availability.

In this study, a detailed dynamic simulation model of an entrained-flow gasifier has been developed and implemented on the commercial software of g-PROMS and MATLAB.  We test the MPC algorithm on the simulated plant  in order to develop effective control strategies to fight against various disturbances and load changes that can occur during a typical operation. The Shell gasifier is chosen to be modeled as a typical entrained-flow gasifier.

• Reference

[1] NETL, “Gasification DataBase,” 2010.

[2] J. Phillips “CoalFleet RD&D Augmentation Plan for IGCC power plants”, EPRI report, 2007

[3] Bo Sun , Yongwen Liu, Xi Chen, Qulan Zhou and Ming Su, “Dynamic modeling and simulation of shell gasifier in IGCC”, Fuel Processing Technolcogy, vol.92, Iss.8, pp. 1418-1425, Aug. 2011

[4] Y.T. Kim, “Overview of IGCC Demonstration Project in Korea”, coal gasification symposium at KIChE, 2012

• Acknowledgement

1) This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(2011-0006839)

2) This treatise was supported by the project of Global Ph.D. Fellowship which National Research Foundation of Korea conducts from 2011.