Development and validation of a dynamic simulation model for a large coal-fired power plant

• Detailed modelling of large coal fired power plant with minimal boundary conditions.
• Validated against operational data showing a very good agreement.
• Maximum relative errors of less than 5% regarding the mass flow rate, temperature and pressure.
• The model will be ideal for research regarding innovative flexibility measures.

The rapid expansion of renewables due massive use of subsidies in the last years changes the operation of fossil fired power plants in Germany dramatically. Since the large-scale storage of electricity is still difficult and forecasts for wind and solar energy have unavoidable uncertainties, the conventional power plants have to compensate the demand in the grid. Several new measures are introduced by power plants operators in order to respond to these new market conditions like the reduction of the low load operation of the nominal load and the continuous operation at an off-design operation point. In this work, a full-scale dynamic model of large scale coal-fired power plant has been developed to investigate the operation flexibility. The dynamic model, developed in the process simulation program APROS, includes all power plant components and its associated control schemas. The only boundary conditions are the coal composition, the ambient temperature and the temperature and amount of cooling water in condensers. The developed model is validated against operational data from the real power plant during part load transients, showing a very good agreement. The validated model is of high relevance for further investigations regarding flexibility increase in conventional large coal-fired power plants.