Development of a system for estimating and forecasting the rational resource-saving operating modes of TPP

The world energy crisis and environmental problems have prompted a rapid increase in the share of electricity generation by renewable sources. However, the operating modes of such energy facilities are rather uneven over 24 hours. Thus, for the energy sector of most developing countries, and as well as for part of developed countries, such fluctuations in the overall energy production balance lead to the forced limitation of the equipment capacity at TPPs or to the full shutdown of power units. The insufficient quantity of maneuvering capacities in the overall energy generating balance is a characteristic feature of the power systems of such countries as the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Argentina, and others. The shortage of such capacities is often compensated for by the pulverized coal units with a power of 200–300 MW, whose operation is enabled at half-peak and peak modes. This equipment is not designed for such operations. Therefore, the development of a regime method of resource management has been proposed to prevent the premature exhaustion of TPP generating equipment. Based on technical auditing of the operational documentation of generating companies, a method has been suggested aimed at forecasting the rational resource-saving operational regimes of the high-temperature elements of power equipment by optimizing the ratio of the number of launches of the equipment from various thermal states. An optimization problem has been stated, which implies determining such a distribution of the process structural-technological parameters that would ensure the maximal preservation of equipment resource. The residual resource has been selected as the objective function of the optimization problem. The devised method has been represented in the form of a comprehensive system for estimating and forecasting the rational operational modes of the TPP high-temperature elements, which makes it possible to define individual resource indicators over the entire period of equipment operation for all possible future combinations of operational modes and to compile forecasts for thousands of different variants of power unit exploitation, implying the calculation of resource indicators for each of them