With the limits on emissions from traditional coal fired power stations coming under increasing pressure from Government legislation more and more companies are looking for technologies to keep the lights burning. While there are well established physical approaches to addressing this issue these come with serious financial downsides as well as the amount of time that is involved in delivering a plant that will be compliant well into the future.
For a number of years Schneider Electric’s Software division has been successfully deploying a software based approach to address emissions on Coal fired stations around the world. With the advent of the next generation of software this paper will detail how this approach has been deployed with Drax Power Station. Drax has now upgraded half the power station to run on sustainable biomass and is committed to further reducing emissions (such as NOx) around the plant.
Using model-based predictive control technology to identify and sustain operation at the optimum condition this station uses SimSci APC to optimise, in real-time, the combustion conditions of the boiler to minimise NOx generation from Drax’s three remaining coal units, while respecting all operating constraints and safety margins. During performance trials conducted by the station, the system has demonstrated significant reductions in NOx emissions depending on operating load. These reductions are married to a number of additional benefits in operation that this paper will highlight.