Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

A power-saving control strategy for reducing the total pressure applied

by the primary air fan of a coal-fired power plant
Yuelan Wang a, Zengyi Ma a,⇑, Yueliang Shen b, Yijun Tang a, Mingjiang Ni a, Yong Chi a, Jianhua Yan a,
Kefa Cen a
a
State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China
b
Electric Power Research Institute of Guangdong Power Grid Corporation, Guangzhou 510080, PR China

h i g h l i g h t s

Primary air fans in coal-fired power plant usually consume unnecessary high power.

A power-saving control strategy including two models is proposed for the primary air fan.

The performance of the power-saving control strategy is verified with real time data.

Power consumption reduction is obtained by experiments under different loads.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The high power consumption of auxiliary equipment, particularly that of the primary air fan, in a coal-fired
Received 8 February 2016 power plant provides ample scope for reducing power consumption. Therefore, a power-saving control
Received in revised form 12 April 2016 strategy for the primary air fan is proposed that automatically calculates a primary air pressure offset
Accepted 24 April 2016
value in real time, which, when combined with the existing primary air pressure setting, reduces the total
pressure, and correspondingly decreases the power consumption of the primary air fan while maintaining
the mill outlet temperature within the optimum range. The power-saving control strategy implements
Keywords:
two models that are respectively applicable to normal conditions and mill outlet over-temperature con-
Power saving
Total pressure
ditions. Mechanistic modeling is implemented for the model applicable to normal conditions. The model
Primary air fan evaluates the mill inlet hot air damper opening for determining the potential for reducing the power con-
Power plant sumption, the mill inlet cold air damper opening is applied for adjust the mill outlet temperature, and the
Control strategy total pressure and corresponding power consumption are thereby reduced. The other model is controlled
by a conventional proportional derivative controller, which employs the deviation of the mill outlet tem-
perature as its input. The proposed power-saving control strategy is applied to a 1000 MW commercial
power plant, and the power consumption of the primary fan is demonstrated to be reduced by as much
as 465 kW for a 500 MW load, resulting in a power consumption reduction of 15%.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction coal contributes to resource depletion, coal-fired power plants

Increasing worldwide human populations and the continuous
development of technology have led to increased global electricity
consumption [1]. Of power generation worldwide, 68% is produced
by thermal power plants employing fossil fuels [2]. Moreover, coal
serves as the primary fossil fuel employed. For example, the statis-
tics provided by the China Electricity Council indicate that greater
than 94% of the total thermal power installed capacity in China
employs coal as the fuel source [3]. While this heavy reliance on
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mazy@zju.edu.cn (Z. Ma).
are also the main sources of pollutant emissions worldwide [4,5],
such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), resulting
in detrimental environment conditions such as acid rain and pho-
tochemical smog [6–8]. In an effort to decrease coal consumption
and corresponding pollutant emissions, various approaches for
improving power plant efficiency have been proposed such as
power plant repowering [9–12] optimizing the performance of pri-
mary components [13–17]. In addition, while not a mainstream
strategy, reducing the power consumption of auxiliary power
equipment offers a viable alternative approach owing to ease of
implementation, and present scope for further improvement.
Thermal power plants employ auxiliary equipment to fulfill
specific requirements. For example, the primary air fan is an

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.04.101
0306-2619/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388
extremely important auxiliary component for supplying primary
air for the boiler feeding system, which plays an important role
in drying pulverized coal generated in pulverization mills,
transporting the pulverized coal from the mill to the furnace, and
providing oxygen for ignition and combustion of the pulverized
coal. However, auxiliary equipment consumes a portion of the gen-
erated electricity to maintain normal operation, which accounts for
6–15% of the total electricity generation in fossil-fuel power plants,
and 4–6% in nuclear power plants [18]. Although auxiliary compo-
nents are crucial to power plant operation, relatively little atten-
tion has been applied to optimizing them.
Ravala and Patel [19] studied the power plant efficiency
improvement attained by decreasing the power consumption of
the pump and compressor by means of impeller trimming, de-
staging, and installation of variable frequency drives (VFDs). Mandi
and Yaragatti [20] proposed improving the plant load factor (PLF)
to reduce auxiliary power use in power plants, and measures of
which are described. Ye et al. [21] sought to optimize power plant
operation by improving the efficiency of the axial flow fan via
blade tip grooving, which alters the flow field and the complex vor-
tex distribution in the tip clearance to optimization the power
plant. Ruiz et al. [22,23] investigated improving the efficiency of
auxiliary services using multi-objective optimization including
both energy and economic criteria based on three methods,
namely, the use of more efficient electric motors, the installation
of variable speed drives (VSDs), and power-factor correction.
However, with respect to improved power plant efficiency, no
research has yet been published that focuses on reducing the
power consumption of the primary air fan, which is directly rele-
vant to the economical operation of a power plant. The actual oper-
ation parameters currently employed for primary air fans typically
result in unnecessarily high power consumption. This is particu-
larly apparent with regard to the total pressure induced by the pri-
mary air fan. Based on the potential for significant power-savings,
the present study develops a strategy for enhancing coal-fired
power plant efficiency by decreasing primary air fan power con-
sumption based on decreasing the total pressure. Two models are
designed for different operating conditions, respectively denoted
as normal conditions and mill outlet over-temperature conditions
Mechanistic modeling is implemented for the model applicable
to normal conditions, and the other model is controlled by a con-
ventional proportional derivative (PD) controller. These two mod-
els are selectively operable by means of a switching mechanism.
The output of the power control strategy is then combined with
the primary air pressure setting of the original control circuit to
obtain a new reduced pressure. Thus, the power consumption is
decreased. The proposed approach has been validated using real-
time data obtained during its application in a 1000 MW thermal
power plant, and the power consumption of the primary air fan
was decreased by as much as 465 kW for a load of 500 MW, result-
ing in a power consumption reduction of 15%.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
describes the primary air system. Section 3 presents the power-
saving control strategy for the primary air fan, which mainly
includes the two condition-dependent models and the mechanism
for switching among these two models. Verification of the strategy
and the effect of its application in a 1000 MW ultra-supercritical
once-through coal-fired power plant are presented in Section 4.
Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions of the study.
2. Brief description of a primary air system
A typical primary air system for a coal-fired power plant is
schematically illustrated in Fig. 1. The system is comprised of a
total of two primary air fans (1 in Fig. 1) which run at all times,
381
even under low load conditions, mill A through mill F, and air pre-
heaters (4 in Fig. 1). The primary air provided by each primary air
fan is divided into two components, one of which, after passing
through the air preheater, is channeled through an air preheater
outlet damper (5 in Fig. 1) into the hot blast main pipe, and the
other, bypassing the air preheater, passes directly through a cold
air damper (3 in Fig. 1) into the cold blast main pipe, and is
employed for adjusting the temperature of the primary air. After
mixing in their respective main pipes, hot and cold primary air
are allocated to the corresponding pulverization mill by branch
pipes. Valves controlled dampers are installed in the hot and cold
branch pipes, which are denoted as the mill inlet hot air damper
(7 in Fig. 1) and the mill inlet cold air damper (6 in Fig. 1), respec-
tively, which play a role in regulating air pressure to ensure that
the flow and temperature of the primary air meet the needs of
the respective mill.
3. Model development
As illustrated in Fig. 2, the power-saving control strategy is
mainly comprised of a switching mechanism and the two models
respectively employed for normal conditions and mill outlet
over-temperature conditions, the outputs of which are y1 and y2,
respectively. Mechanistic modeling is implemented to obtain y1,
whereas y2 is obtained by a PD control algorithm, which is
employed due to its advantages, such as simple structure, despite
the development of more complex control methodologies [24].
The PD methodology determines the value of a control variable u
(t) that minimizes the deviation e(t) of a measured process variable
from its control value with respect to time t, and, for generality, is
presented here as follows:


deðtÞ
uðtÞ ¼ kp eðtÞ þ T D ; ð1Þ
dt
where kp is the proportional term coefficient and TD is the differen-
tial time constant.
The switching mechanism ensures that only one of the control
outputs y1 or y2 is applied to a proportional-integral-derivative
(PID) controller. The PID controller provides the output of the
power-saving control strategy, defined as the primary air pressure
offset value yoff, which is coupled with the primary air pressure
obtained from the original control circuit, leading to an appropriate
control of air dampers and the rotor blade actuators of the primary
air fans.
3.1. Model for normal conditions
The input power of the primary air fan motor is calculated
according to the power PM utilized by the motor for driving the pri-
mary air fan [25] as follows:
Pe qV p
PM ¼ K ¼K ; ð2Þ
ggm gg 1000ggm gg
where PM denotes the motor capacity prosperity coefficient, Pe is the
effective motor power, qV represents the primary air fan volume
flow, P represents the total pressure of the primary air fan, and g,
gm, and gg are the fan efficiency, transmission efficiency, and motor
efficiency, respectively.
Generally, K remains constant for a given primary air fan. The
improvement of g, gm, and gg is usually achieved by increased
investment such as the installation of more efficient electric
motors [26], and therefore lies outside of the topic of the present
study. In addition, qV depends on the load, and is therefore constant
under a given load. As a result, these parameters are not suitable
382 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388

3
cold air

burners 6
mill A 5 2 1
hot air ambient air
4

...
burners

...
mill F

Fig. 1. Schematic of a primary air system: 1 – primary air fan; 2 – valve for primary air fan outlet damper; 3 – valve for cold air damper; 4 – air preheater; 5 – valve for air
preheater outlet damper; 6 – valve for mill inlet cold air damper; 7 – valve for mill inlet hot air damper.

Opening of mill inlet hot, cold

Mill outlet temperature
air damper

Model for mill outlet over-

Model for normal conditions
temperature conditions

y1 y2

Switching mechanism

PID
Controller

Primary air pressure offset

value

Primary air pressure from + Rotor blade actuator of

+
original cicult primary air fan

Air damper actuator

Fig. 2. Structure diagram of the proposed power-saving control strategy.

for decreasing the primary air fan power. However, it is relatively fan, the pressure which meets the total pressure drop is regarded
easy and economical to reduce power consumption by reducing p. as the calculated total pressure p, which can be expressed as fol-
Because the total pressure of the primary air fan in a coal-fired lows [27,28]:
power plant is no less than the total pressure drop of the system X X
p ¼ pin þ Dpin þ Dpf þ Dpf þ Dpt þ Dpr þ pr ; ð3Þ
including the pipes and devices before and after the primary air
 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388
where pin and Dpin are the negative pressure and resistance at the
P
inlet of the coal pulverizing system, respectively, Dpf represents
the sum of the frictional resistance, including all the pipes and
devices before and after the primary air fan, Dpt denotes the head
loss associated with lifting pulverized coal, Dpr is the acceleration
loss of pulverized coal, pr is the absolute value of the furnace nega-
P  maxðx1i g 1 iÞ þ b1 maxðx2i g 1 iÞ  k2 b1 x3  b1 b2
tive pressure, and Dpf expresses the sum of pressure changes due
to local resistance sources, including all the pipes and devices
before and after the primary air fan.
p tends to vary greatly due to the sources of Dpf, which mainly
result from constrictions such as pipeline elbows, cross-sectional
variations, and air dampers. For an existing primary air system,
the former two sources of Dpf vary little; however, the resistance
of air dampers varies greatly, especially that of the mill inlet hot
air damper opening always falls short of the set point, particularly
under low load conditions, increasing the loss of local resistance at
this point, and, thus, increasing the total pressure. Therefore, the
mill hot air damper opening must be increased during operation
to decrease primary air fan power consumption. For determining
model output y1, the difference between the control value of the
mill inlet hot air damper opening (defined herein as x2s) and the
real time value (defined herein as x2) is employed as the model
input for establishing the potential for reducing the power con-
sumption. In addition, the mill inlet cold air damper (defined
herein as x1) is applied to adjust the mill outlet temperature,
and, when the temperature rises out of range, x1 is nearly certain
to increase, and x2 to decrease to control the mill outlet tempera-
ture within established limits. Therefore, x1 is selected as the cor-
rection factor of the model, which operates according to the
function f(x1). As such, y1 can be defined as follows:
y1 ¼ ðx2  x2s Þ  f ðx1 Þ ð4Þ
Here, x2s can be given as a function of the load x3, i.e., x2s = f(x3)
according to the design.
Regardless of the scale of the ultra-supercritical unit, it will
employ more than a single mill and feeder system, typically ranging
from three to six. Accordingly, from three to six mill inlet hot and
cold air damper groups will also be employed, and the respective
openings of each group will be different during operation due to
the different coal feeding rate of each mill. Therefore, x2 and x1 are
expressed as the largest hot and cold air damper openings, respec-
tively, to prevent overshoot. In addition, a level of redundancy is
implemented that holds a set of mill and feeder systems in reserve,
and, under low load conditions, one-half of the mills are typically
out of service. In this condition, the device control signal g1i is used
to identify whether or not a mill feeder system is in operation and
controlled automatically. Therefore, x1 and x2 can be expressed as
follows:
x1 ¼ maxðx1i g 1i Þ ð5Þ
x2 ¼ maxðx2i g 1i Þ ð6Þ
Here, i = 1, 2, . . ., n, where n is the total number of mills, x1i and
x2i denote the mill inlet cold air and hot air damper openings of
mill i, respectively, and g1i is expressed as g1i = G1iG2i, where G1i
and G2i are the respective control signals for mill i and coal feeder
i, which are defined as follows:

1 ðcoal feeder i in operationÞ
G1i ¼ ð7Þ
0 ðcoal feeder i not in operationÞ
 and the power consumption is still reduced relative to conditions
1 ðmill i in operationÞ
G2i ¼ ð8Þ
0 ðmill i not in operationÞ
Operation experience has demonstrated that linear forms of f
(x1) and f(x3) sufficiently satisfy the control performance, and they
383
are therefore approximated as f(x1) = k1x1 + b1 and f(x3) = k2x3 + b2,
where k1, k2, b1, and b2 are constants. As such, Eq. (4) can be rewrit-
ten as follows:
y1 ¼ k1 maxðx1i g 1 iÞ maxðx2i g 1 iÞ  k1 k2 x3 maxðx1i g 1 iÞ  k1 b2
ð9Þ
Under this condition, the value of y1 is input into the PID con-
troller, and provided yoff is negative, which is generally the case,
leads to increasing mill inlet hot air damper openings a decreasing
total pressure, and, thus, a decreasing power consumption of the
primary air fan.
3.2. Model for mill outlet over-temperature conditions
When the outlet temperature of a given mill is over the set
point, the mill inlet cold air damper opening will normally increase
to supply sufficient cold air, in which case the model designed for
normal conditions functions appropriately, and slightly decreases
the mill inlet hot air damper. However, if the cold air damper open-
ing has reached its limit, further increasing the cold air flow will
require an increased total pressure to control the mill outlet tem-
perature, and the model designed for normal conditions will fail
to function properly. This condition not only affects mill safety,
but also the combustion in the furnace. Therefore, a model apply-
ing the PD control algorithm given in Eq. (1) was created for mill
outlet over-temperature conditions to reduce power consumption
while controlling the mill outlet temperature within the estab-
lished range.
While a single mill exhibiting an over-temperature condition is
not dire, a greater number of overheating mills requires serious
attention. Accordingly, e(t) is defined as follows:
eðtÞ ¼ maxðx4i g 2i Þ ð10Þ
Here, x4i is the temperature deviation of mill i, and is expressed
as x4i = Ti  Ti0, where Ti is the real time outlet temperature and Ti0
is the output temperature set point of mill i, g2i is the mill outlet
temperature control signal whose function is similar to g1i, and is
defined as g2i = G1iG2iG3i, where G3i is the inlet cold air damper con-
trol signal of mill i, expressed as follows:

1 ðmill i inlet cold air damper > 80%Þ
G3i ¼ ð11Þ
0 ð0 < mill i inlet cold air damper < 80%Þ
Combining Eqs. (1) and (10), the output y2 can be given as
follows:


d maxðx4i g 2i Þ
y2 ¼ kp1 maxðx4i g 2i Þ þ T D1 ; ð12Þ
dt
where kp1 and TD1 are the proportional term coefficient and differ-
ential time constant, respectively, as mentioned above.
As in the case for normal conditions, yoff is the output of the PID
controller based on the input y2. Because the mill inlet cold air
damper opening has attained its limiting value, further increasing
the cold air flow will require an increased total pressure, resulting
in a value of yoff that is greater than that obtained under normal
conditions. Typically, yoff will be negative, indicating reduced
power consumption, although serious overheating will increase yoff
to zero. However, yoff = 0 represents operating at the set pressure,
where the power-saving control strategy has not been applied
because the mill inlet hot air damper opening is inevitably smaller
without the proposed strategy, and the pressure will increase nev-
ertheless based on the set pressure.
384 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388

3.3. Mechanism for switching among the two models

67 m
Due to the inherent inaccuracies of air flow and temperature
measurements and of actuator output, the mill outlet temperature
may fluctuate, and a threshold is set as the basis for switching
among the two models according to the actual unit operation to
prevent maloperation. When output y2 is less than the threshold,
the unit is assumed to be in normal operation, and output y1 is
applied. However, if y2 is greater than the threshold, indicative of
mill outlet over-temperature conditions, then y2 is applied.

4. Industrial application

While the proposed power-saving control strategy is expressed

in Section 3, almost all coal-fired power plants employ a dis-
tributed control system (DCS). Therefore, prior to applying the
power-saving control strategy to a particular power plant, it must
be converted to the appropriate control logic, such as that given by
Scientific Apparatus Makers Association (SAMA) diagrams, which
are widely used in coal fired power plants currently. Although
the various control systems employed are not equivalent, their
inherent similarities make the proposed power saving control
strategy easily implemented.

The proposed power-saving control strategy for the primary air
fan was applied to a 1000 MW ultra-supercritical once-through
unit in China. The application results were satisfactory. Here, sev-
eral real-time operation results were recorded every 12 s to demon-
strate the functionality of the power-saving control strategy, and
experiments were conducted to quantitatively evaluate the result-
ing reduction in power consumption, both of which are presented
as examples to verify the effectiveness of the power-saving control
strategy.
4.1. Brief description of the power plant
Ultra-supercritical combustion technology was selected as the
research object in keeping with the needs for environmental pro-
tection and energy conservation owing to its enhanced efficiency
of up to 45% and reduced harmful emissions [26,29,30]. Moreover,
ultra-supercritical boilers are expected to be increasingly
employed by power plant operators [31].
The investigated ultra-supercritical unit is a 1000 MW once-
through boiler with swirling burners, featuring a large furnace
with a rectangular 15.56 m  33.97 m cross section and a height
of 69.7 m. Fig. 3 illustrates the boiler schematically. It is equipped
with six medium-speed mills, where five are put into operation
and one is held in reserve under the rated load. Each mill is
employed to supply pulverized coal to eight swirling burners in
each layer. Taking the front wall as an example, there are three lay-
ers of swirling burners in total, and two side air ports (SAP) are
fixed over the top layer of swirling burners, where one resides
close to left wall and the other to the right wall, as shown in
Fig. 3. Similarly, eight after air ports (AAP) are arranged in a layer
at the top. The arrangement of these nozzles in the rear wall is
equivalent to that in the front wall. In addition, the air/flue gas
diagram of the power plant is shown in Fig. 4.
4.2. Validation of the two models
Because the cross-sectional area of the straight conduits leading
in and out of the primary air fan changes little, and passage through
the primary air fan has a negligible effect on the temperature, the
variation of the air density and speed in and out of the primary
air fan is small. As such, the dynamic pressure can be ignored.
The inlet pressure of the primary air fan resides at atmospheric
15.56 m
Fig. 3. Schematic of the 1000 MW ultra-supercritical once-through boiler.
pressure; therefore, changes in the primary air fan outlet pressure
(i.e., the primary air pressure) can be employed to represent
changes in the total pressure. Because the total pressure cannot
be directly obtained from the DCS, the following discussion
employs the primary air pressure rather than the total pressure,
which is reasonable according to the preceding analysis.
4.2.1. Normal conditions
Fig. 5 shows the variation of the primary air pressure and the
current of the primary air fan after the application of the power-
saving control strategy under a load of 460 MW. Under these con-
ditions, the primary air flow for each of mills A and B was around
the optimal value of 130 t/h, and the mill outlet temperature was
stable within the established bounds. It can be observed from the
figure that, after the power-saving control strategy was imple-
mented, the general pressure level decreased in two stages, first
from about 10.588 kPa to 10.386 kPa, and then from about
10.386 kPa to 9.978 kPa. Correspondingly, both primary air fan cur-
rents decreased in two stages as well, where the overall decrease in
the current of primary air fan B was from 165 A to 154 A, and the
overall decrease in the current of primary air fan A was from 160 A
to 148 A. Under continuous operating conditions at constant load,
the primary air pressure should conform to the set value, and
change very little, while, correspondingly, the fan current should
also remain stable. However, the decreasing primary air pressure
and fan current are fully attributable to the application of the
power-saving control strategy. Additionally, the variation of the
primary air pressure also verifies that a negative yoff causes the
total pressure and power consumption to decrease.
4.2.2. Mill outlet over-temperature conditions
Fig. 6 illustrates the mill outlet temperature variation after
implementation of the power-saving control strategy under
 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388 385

cold air
primary air fan chimney

mill F
hot air
forced draught fan

desulfurization
mill E unit
SCR*
induced fan
air preheater
mill D

Electrostatic
furnace flue gas
precipitator

mill C

mill B

mill A

Fig. 4. Diagram of the air/flue gas system. *SCR: selective catalytic reduction. Note that all valves are not shown in the diagram.

12.6 200 90 0.0

Primary air pressure offset value (kPa)

primary air fan A outlet pressure
Primary air pressure (kPa)

primary air fan B outlet pressure

Primary air fan current (A)

Mill outlet temperature ( )

12.0 primary air fan A current 180 80 set value mill A outlet temperature -0.2
primary air fan B current mill B outlet temperature
mill F outlet temperature
primary air pressure offset value
11.4 160 70 -0.4

10.8 140 60 -0.6

10.2 120 50 -0.8

9.6 100 40 -1.0

12:18 12:20 12:22 12:24 03:30 04:00 04:30 05:00
Time Time

Fig. 5. Variation of the primary air pressure and primary air fan current over time Fig. 6. Variation of the mill outlet temperature and primary air pressure offset
after application of the power-saving control strategy. value over time under mill outlet over-temperature conditions after application of
the power-saving control strategy.

over-temperature conditions for a stable load of 450 MW and a pri- function in parallel, resulting in equivalent functionality. It is also
mary air flow for each mill of about 130 t/h. It can be seen from of note that, during the process of temperature regulation, yoff is
Fig. 6 that three mills, mills A, B and F, are in operation. The outlet negative at all times, indicating that power consumption is
temperatures of all three mills are initially not greater than the set reduced relative to conditions in the absence of the power-saving
value of 85 °C, and the outlet temperature of mill A is closest to the control strategy.
set value. Meanwhile, yoff is initially 0.875 kPa. After about Fig. 7 presents the process of temperature control under similar
30 min, the outlet temperature of mill A exceeds the set value conditions of mill outlet over-temperature in the absence of the
and yoff increases to 0.775 kPa to control the temperature by power-saving control strategy for a constant load of 450 MW. It
increasing the primary air pressure of the primary air fan. While can be seen that the outlet temperature of mill A is around 75 °C,
yoff remains 0.775 kPa, the outlet temperature of mill A continues and resides below the set value, whereas the outlet temperature
increasing to a maximum value 87.1 °C, and then slightly of mill F fluctuates around 90 °C and the outlet temperature of mill
decreases. Prior to undergoing an additional increase in the outlet E resides at about 92 °C for approximately 1 h. Although the mill
temperature, yoff increases to 0.719 kPa. At this time, the outlet outlet over temperature is serious, yoff was set at 0.314 kPa by
temperature gradually decreases below the set value, and the pri- the human operator, and never changed.
mary air pressure is reduced, resulting in a correspondingly Therefore, compared with over-temperature conditions under
decreased current and reduced power consumption. Moreover, it conventional control, application of the power-saving control
is observed that the outlet temperatures of mills B and F also strategy not only provides for reduced power consumption due
decrease during this time according to a similar trend to that of to the lower value of yoff, but the mill outlet temperature is also
the outlet temperature of mill A because all control circuits controlled within the required range.
386 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388

100 0.0 C and E were supplied with 49 Indonesia coal. Under these condi-

Primary air pressure offset value (kPa)

tions, four mills were in operation for loads of 500 and 580 MW,
and three mills for a load of 400 MW. During testing, when varying
Mill outlet temperature ( )

90 -0.1
boiler loading to establish the seven load settings, the mill inlet hot
air damper opening, the primary air pressure and current and
80 set value -0.2 power of the primary air fan were recorded with the power-
saving control strategy in service and out of service, respectively,
to observe the resulting variation in the relative parameters. The
70 -0.3 power consumption reduction Ppcr and percentage power reduc-
tion Perpcr were calculated as follows:
mill A outlet temperature
60 mill E outlet temperature -0.4 Ppcr ¼ Pos  Pis ð13Þ
mill F outlet temperature
primary air pressure offset value

50 -0.5 Perpcr ¼ 100%  ðPos  Pis Þ=Pos ð14Þ

22:30 22:40 22:50 23:00
Time
Fig. 7. Variation of the mill outlet temperature and primary air pressure offset
value over time under mill outlet over-temperature conditions without application
of the power-saving control strategy.
4.3. Assessment of power savings
4.3.1. Experimental setup
Industrial-scale experiments were performed under seven dif-
ferent loads of 440, 500, 580, 670, 750, 878, and 1000 MW. The
principle information regarding the coal pulverization system
operation under different loads is listed in Table 1, and the charac-
teristics of the coal supplied to the mills are listed in Table 2. At rel-
atively high loads, mills A and E were supplied with 51 Indonesia
coal, and mills B–D and F were supplied with 47 Indonesia coal.
The specific details of the coal pulverization system operation are
given as follows. (i) At loads of 750, 878, and 1000 MW, all six mills
were in service. Each of mills A–F supplied pulverized-coal at a
coal-feeding rate approaching 72 t/h at full load. With each load
decrease of about 120 MW, the coal-feeding rate of each mill
decreased by about 6 t/h. (ii) When the load was decreased from
750 MW to 670 MW, mill A was placed out of service to ensure
high operating efficiency, and the coal-feeding rates of the mills
remaining in service were slightly increased. At relatively low
loads, mills B and F were supplied with 43 Indonesia coal, and mills
23:10
Here, Pos and Pis are the total power of the primary air fan with
the power-saving control strategy out of service and in service,
respectively, based upon the experimentally derived data.
4.3.2. Experimental results and discussion
Table 3 presents the operational parameters recorded during
the experiments, which are comprised of the maximum mill inlet
hot air damper opening, primary air pressure, and total primary
air fan current and power with the power-saving control strategy
both in and out of service. Fig. 8 presents the values of Ppcr and
Perpcr under different loads As shown in Table 3, application of
the power-saving control strategy resulted in an increased maxi-
mum mill inlet hot air damper opening relative to that of conven-
tional control, except under the condition of a full load (1000 MW),
and the maximum damper opening was in all cases close to 100%.
This reduced the local resistance to a negligible value, resulting in a
decreasing primary air pressure, and reduced fan power consump-
tion. The experimental results indicate that, with the application of
the power-saving control strategy, the primary air fan power
decreases to the greatest extent for a load of 500 MW, decreasing
from 3105 kW to 2640 kW with a corresponding power reduction
approaching 15%. In addition, when all six mills are in operation,
the resulting reduction in the primary air fan power sequentially
increased with decreasing load from zero at 1000 MW to a maxi-
mum at 750 MW. This same trend is particularly pronounced for
four mills in operation as the load decreases from 580 MW to

Table 1
Operational parameters employed in the experiments.

Load (MW) Mills in service Coal type Coal-feeding rate (t/h)

Mill A Mill B Mill C Mill D Mill E Mill F
440 BEF BF: 43 Indonesia coal – 65.3 – – 65.2 65.3
500 BCEF CE: 49 Indonesia coal – 59.2 45.4 – 59.2 59.7
580 BCEF – 62.3 54.1 – 62.5 62.6
670 BCDEF AE: 51 Indonesia coal – 61.5 61.3 59.4 61.4 61.7
750 ABCDEF BCDF: 47 Indonesia coal 59.8 59.5 53.6 44.4 59.2 59.8
878 ABCDEF 66.9 66.2 65 65.2 66.1 66.6
1000 ABCDEF 72.5 72.1 72.1 72.3 71.7 72.3

Table 2
Characteristics of the coal employed in the experiments.

Contenta Units Coal type

43 Indonesia coal 49 Indonesia coal 47 Indonesia coal 51 Indonesia coal
Qnet, ar kcal/kg 4452 5443 4539 4754
Vad % 39.3 39.9 40.1 38.3
Aad % 2.8 5.2 2.4 5.8
St, ad % 0.09 1.17 0.11 0.78
Mt % 29.1 17 28.4 24.0
a
Qnet: low heat value; V: volatile matter; A: ash; St: sulfur; Mt: moisture; ar: as-received basis; ad: air-dried basis.
 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388 387

Table 3
Operational parameters recorded during the experiments.

Load (MW) Maximum mill inlet hot air Primary air pressure (kPa) Primary air fan total current Primary air fan total power
damper opening (%) (A) (kW)
In service Out of service In service Out of service In service Out of service In service Out of service
440 98 73 9.68 10.51 311.0 330.2 2532 2760
500 98 63 8.61 10.1 321.5 359.1 2640 3105
580 100 76 9.23 10.07 335.8 353.4 2826 3021
670 97 68 8.86 10.06 396.9 424.0 3456 3879
750 99 80 9.32 10.12 444.2 468.8 4062 4389
878 99 78 9.88 10.33 485.7 508.4 4587 4828
1000 100 100 10.3 10.3 513.9 513.9 4893 4893

600 18
mainly involved establishing models for normal operating
Power consumption reduction (kW)

power consumption reduction

three mills conditions and mill outlet over-temperature conditions, and a

Percentage power reduction (%)

500
400
300
200
100
four mills
0 0
400 500
Fig. 8. The power consumption reduction (Eq. (13)) and percentage power
reduction (Eq. (14)) obtained by the power-saving control strategy relative to use
of the conventional control strategy under different loads.
500 MW. This indicates that the primary air fan power is increas-
ingly reduced as the load is decreased for a given number of mills
in operation. This is observed because the volume of pulverized
coal supplied by each mill is reduced as the load is decreased for
the same number of mills in operation, and the corresponding vol-
ume of primary air flow is also reduced. Here, mill inlet hot air
damper openings that are far less than 100% under conventional
control provide additional scope for reducing the primary air pres-
sure, resulting in a greater reduction of power consumption. More-
over, as shown in Fig. 8, the scope for reduced power consumption
does not increase with a decreasing number of mills in operation.
For example, compared with four mills operating at a load of
500 MW, the percentage of power reduction is diminished at a load
of 440 MW, where only three mills are in operation. This is because
the individual coal-feeding rates of the three mills operating at a
load of 440 MW are all greater than those of the four mills operat-
ing at a load of 500 MW (Table 1), and the corresponding primary
air flow must be increased. In this case, mill inlet hot air damper
openings approaching 100% provide a more limited scope for
reducing the primary air pressure, resulting in a diminishing
reduction of power consumption. Finally, the power-saving control
strategy cannot reduce the power consumption of the primary fan
for a load of 1000 MW. At full load, nearly all parameters have
attained their set values, the coal-feeding rates of all mills are at
a maximum, as is the primary air flow, such that there is practically
no scope for reducing the primary air pressure, and, consequently,
no reduction in power consumption is possible.
5. Conclusions
A power-saving control strategy focused on reducing the high
power consumption of the primary air fan was presented in this
paper. The development of the power-saving control strategy
percentage power reduction
15
mechanism for switching among these two models was imple-
mented. The proposed power-saving control strategy was success-
12
fully applied to the primary air system of a 1000 MW ultra-
supercritical once-through unit in a power plant in China. Under
9
normal operating conditions, the strategy was demonstrated to
effectively decrease the power consumption of the primary air
6 fan by decreasing the total pressure according to a precisely com-
five mills
puted primary air pressure offset value. Under mill outlet over-
3 temperature conditions, the proposed strategy was verified not
six mills
only to reduce the power consumption of the primary air fan,
but also to control the temperature within the desired range effec-
600 700 800 900 1000 tively. Industrial-scale experiments demonstrated that the power
Load (MW) consumption of the primary fan was reduced by as much as
465 kW for a load of 500 MW, representing a power reduction of
15% relative to the conventional control strategy. Successful appli-
cation has demonstrated that the developed control strategy effec-
tively reduces the power consumption of the primary air fan while
providing for enhanced regulation of primary air flow and temper-
ature, which can be expected to positively impact the power plant
efficiency. Moreover, once the power saving control strategy is
appropriately converted to the control logic of a given power plant,
it is effective regardless of the scale of the unit, and the type of pri-
mary air fan employed, provided the higher power consumption of
the primary air fan results from overly restrictive mill inlet hot air
damper openings due to poor operation.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities. The authors would like to
acknowledge the Electric Power Research Institute of Guangdong
Power Grid Corporation for their assistance with the experiments.
The authors also wish to thank the Huaneng Haimen and Shajiao C
power plant for allowing the boiler unit testing and for providing
some technical data.
References
[1] Vandani Amin Mohammadi Khoshkar, Bidi Mokhtar, Ahmadi Fatemeh. Exergy
analysis and evolutionary optimization of boiler blowdown heat recovery in
steam power plants. Energy Convers Manage 2015;106:1–9.
[2] Song Chenxi, Li Mingjia, Zhang Fan, He Ya-Ling, Tao Wen-Quan. A data
envelopment analysis for energy efficiency of coal-fired power units in China.
Energy Convers Manage 2015;102:121–30.
[3] China Electricity Council. Lists of basic statistical data for power industry in
2013. Available from: http://www.cec.org.cn/guihuayutongji/tongjxinxi/
niandushuju/2015-03-06/134849.html,2015.
[4] Dios M, Souto JA, Casares JJ. Experimental development of CO2, SO2 and NOx
emission factors for mixed lignite and subbituminous coal-fired power plant.
Energy 2013;53:40–51.
[5] Li Ming-Jia, Song Chen-Xi, Tao Wen-Quan. A hybrid model for explaining the
short-term dynamics of energy efficiency of China’s thermal power plants.
Appl Energy 2016;169:738–47.
388 Y. Wang et al. / Applied Energy 175 (2016) 380–388
[6] Li Kangkang, Yu Hai, Qi Guojie, Feron Paul, Tade Moses, Yu Jingwen, et al.
Rate-based modelling of combined SO2 removal and NH3 recycling
integrated with an aqueous NH3-based CO2 capture process. Appl Energy
2015;148:66–77.
[7] Tang Y, Ma X, Lai Z, Zhou D, Lin H, Chen Y. NOx and SO2 emissions from
municipal solid waste (MSW) combustion in CO2/O2 atmosphere. Energy
2012;40(1):300–6.
[8] Wang Jinsheng, Anthony Edward J. Clean combustion of solid fuels. Appl
Energy 2008;85:73–9.
[9] Carapellucci Roberto, Giordano Lorena. Energy, economic and environmental
assessments for gas-turbine integration into an existing coal-fired power
plant. Energy Procedia 2014;45:1175–84.
[10] Szargut Jan, Szczygiel Ireneusz. Comparison of the efficiency of the variants of
a primary gas turbine supplementing a coal-fired power plant. Energy
2005;30:1204–17.
[11] Fränkle M. SRS: the standardized repowering solution for 300 MW steam
power plants in Russia. Siemens Power Generation Germany; 2006.
[12] Carapellucci Roberto, Giordano Lorena. Upgrading existing coal-fired power
plants through heavy-duty and aeroderivative gas turbines. Appl Energy
2015;156:86–98.
[13] Li Sen, Xu Tongmo, Hui Shien, Wei Xiaolin. NOx emission and thermal
efficiency of a 300 MWe utility boiler retrofitted by air staging. Appl Energy
2009;86:1797–803.
[14] Tanetsakunvatana V, Kuprianov VI. Experimental study on effects of operating
conditions and fuel quality on thermal efficiency and emission performance of
a 300-MW boiler unit firing Thai lignite. Fuel Process Technol 2007;88
(2):199–206.
[15] Liu Xingrang, Bansal RC. Integrating multi-objective optimization with
computational fluid dynamics to optimize boiler combustion process of a
coal fired power plant. Appl Energy 2014;130:658–69.
[16] Zhang Shiping, Shen Guoqing, An Liansuo, Niu Yuguang, Jiang Genshan.
Monitoring ash fouling in power station boiler furnaces using acoustic
pyrometry. Chem Eng Sci 2015;126:216–23.
[17] Shi Yuanhao, Wang Jingcheng, Liu Zhengfeng. On-line monitoring of ash
fouling and soot-blowing optimization for convective heat exchanger in coal-
fired power plant boiler. Appl Therm Eng 2015;78:39–50.
[18] ABB Ltd., Switzerland, N.A. Power generation. energy efficiency design of
auxiliary systems in fossil-fuel power plants. ABB; 2009.
[19] Ravala Tejas N, Patel RN. Optimization of auxiliary power consumption of
combined cycle power plant. Procedia Eng 2013;51:751–7.
[20] Mandi Rajashekar P, Yaragatti Udaykumar R. Control of CO2 emission through
enhancing energy efficiency of auxiliary power equipment in thermal power
plant. Electr Power Energy Syst 2014;62:744–52.
[21] Ye Xuemin, Li Pengmin, Li Chunxi, Ding Xueliang. Numerical investigation of
blade tip grooving effect on performance and dynamics of an axial flow fan.
Energy 2015;82:556–69.
[22] Ruiz Ana B, Luque Mariano, Ruiz Francisco, Saborido Rubén, Ana B. A combined
interactive procedure using preference-based evolutionary multiobjective
optimization. Application to the efficiency improvement of the auxiliary
services of power plants. Expert Syst Appl 2015;42:7466–82.
[23] Ruiz Ana B, Cabello José M, Platero Carlos A, Blázquez Francisco. Multicriteria
optimization of the investment in the auxiliary services of thermal power
plants: a case study. Energy Convers Manage 2015;93:339–48.
[24] de Moura Oliveira PB, Pires EJ Solteiro, Novais Paulo. Design of posicast PID
control systems using a gravitational search algorithm. Neurocomputing
2015;167:18–23.
[25] Yang Shicheng, Wang Xikui, Ye Heng. Pump and fan. China Electric Power
Press; 2007. p. 57–8. (in Chinese).
[26] Wang Guo-Liang, Yan Wei-Wu, Chen Shi-He, Zhang Xi, Shao Hui-He.
Multivariable constrained predictive control of main steam temperature in
ultra-supercritical coal-fired power unit. J Energy Inst 2015;88:181–7.
[27] Zhang Anguo, Liang Hui. Coal preparation and calculation of utility boiler.
China Electric Power Press; 2011. p. 163–4. (in Chinese).
[28] Technical code for design and calculation of pulverized coal preparation
system of fossil-fired power plant DL/T 5145-2002; 2002.
[29] Yang Yongping, Wang Ligang, Dong Changqing, Xu Gang, Morosuk Tatiana,
Tsatsaronis George. Comprehensive exergy-based evaluation and parametric
study of a coal-fired ultra-supercritical power plant. Appl Energy
2013;112:1087–99.
[30] Bartela Łukasz, Skorek-Osikowska Anna, KotowiczAn Janusz. Analysis of the
investment risk related to the integration of a supercritical coal-fired
combined heat and power plant with an absorption installation for CO2
separation. Appl Energy 2015;156:423–35.
[31] Yeo WH, Fry AT, Ramesh, Mohan R, Liew HL, Inayat-Hussain J, et al. Simulating
the implications of oxide scale formations in austenitic steels of ultra-
supercritical fossil power plants. Eng Fail Anal 2014;42:390–401.