Utilization of Drum Boilers’ Storage Capacity for Flexible Operation

Abstract

<p>Due to increasing amount of intermittent and uncontrollable renewable energy production and reducing amount of stabilizing inertia in power systems, requirements for improved dynamic performance of controllable steam boilers will increase remarkably. Load tracking capacity of steam boilers consists of utilization of fast responding energy storages in boiler structures and change rate of available combustion power. This paper presents results of a simulation based dynamic analysis of the transient operation of a steam boiler exposed to fast load change. The results are evaluated against the requirements set by the maximum allowed thermal stresses in boiler structures and stability of steam parameters set by steam turbine operation. This project is a part of the FLEXe (Flexible Future Energy Systems) research program coordinated by CLIC Innovation Ltd and funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation TEKES.</p>