Metso's paper was selected by the Best Paper Awards Committee as one of the three finalists among the papers presented at the recent Power-Gen Europe 2014 exhibition held on June 3-5, 2014, in Cologne, Germany, Metso says in a press release received by Pulpapernews today.
The presentation, "District Heating Network Control Optimization", was highly commended for its concept and content in the Generators, Monitoring and Automation category.
The paper described Metso's optimization controls for district heating through a case in which Metso's control solution significantly improved performance in a large district heating network with a total heat power of about 1,300 MW. The solution has been developed in close cooperation with Fortum.
A large district heating network is conventionally supplied by several cogeneration plants and heating stations. As heat consumption per day tends to vary a lot, it is quite challenging to adjust to the changing electricity and fuel prices, and at the same time, maintain the stability of the district heating network.
Metso's total control solution for the district heating networks, District Heating Manager, ensures network stability and reduces heat losses by controlling the cogeneration plants and heating stations at economically optimal loads. At the same time, heat production and consumption are balanced by controlling the supply temperatures and pressure differences in the network. The core of the solution is a multivariable predictive controller (MPC).
The key benefit of MPC compared with single-input, single-output controllers is that MPC simultaneously takes into account the dynamic interconnections of all manipulated variables with all controlled variables. The control solution improves the economic efficiency and stability of the network and reduces pumping costs.
The major target of optimization controls is to keep the supply temperature of all production units as near the target temperature as possible. Also, the pressure differences are kept within the allowed target values throughout the entire network, also during shutdowns and startups.
"Better control of temperature and pressure fluctuations in the heat plants minimizes heat stress to district heat piping and is therefore one tool to avoid severe disturbances," points out Juha-Pekka Jalkanen.
Metso's control solution will benefit energy companies in all countries where district heating is a widely used form of heating, such as Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Baltic countries and Finland.
