Superheated steam temperature control based on modified active disturbance rejection control

Control of superheated steam temperature (SST) is becoming more and more challenging because of unknown disturbances caused by the frequent and extensive load changes and strict control requirements for the efficiency and safety. This is becoming even severe while the intermittent renewables penetration is growing. To this end, the working principle of SST is depicted and the models of SST are identified from the open-loop step response data. Considering the sluggish responses to the disturbances caused by high order dynamics, a modified active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) is proposed to enhance the control performance. Stability analysis of modified ADRC is derived theoretically to perfect the theory of modified ADRC. Then a practical tuning procedure is summarized for modified ADRC that can be readily understood by field engineers even though it involves trial and error tests. A simulation example shows that modified ADRC can improve the performance of tracking and disturbance rejection simultaneously while maintain a good robustness. A modified ADRC based cascade control strategy is proposed for the SST control system and the control performance is initially confirmed by a simulation based on the identified models. A field application in a 300 MW circulating fluidized bed (CFB) power plant demonstrates the advantages of the proposed strategy, which shows the temperature deviation can be significantly reduced in both the small-scale load varying condition and the large-scale load varying condition. The successful application of the proposed SST control system indicates a promising future of modified ADRC in power industry with the increasing demand on integrating more renewables into the power grid.