“Under the general trend of accelerating the transformation of green development methods, in-depth promotion of environmental pollution control, and actively and steadily promoting the development of ‘double carbon’ goals, the thermal power industry needs to rethink its positioning.” “It is necessary to plan and deploy cogeneration and centralized heating in advance, Promote energy-saving transformation and energy efficiency improvement, strengthen the application of new technologies such as intelligent control, and make every effort to make thermoelectricity an integral part of the new energy system.” “The development of thermoelectricity will gradually turn to clean, intelligent, low-carbon, comprehensive and networked to Adapt to the needs of future energy development.” Recently, the future development direction of the thermoelectric industry has triggered heated discussions.

As a basic energy industry, the thermoelectric industry has a huge scale and high carbon emissions. How to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and reduce carbon emissions has become the key to the survival and development of enterprises. Industry insiders generally believe that the intelligent development trend of the thermoelectric industry is becoming increasingly clear.

Industry needs

In our country, thermal power plants generally use coal as the main fuel. While generating electricity, they also use the extraction steam or exhaust steam of the steam turbine to provide heat for users. At present, the application scenarios of central heating are becoming more and more abundant and complex, and more intelligent development is needed.

Dang Haifeng, CTO of Shanghai Quanying Technology Co., Ltd., said: “Thermoelectric production is a typical process production process. It has the characteristics of natural raw materials, continuous production, load linkage, and process coupling, which brings many problems to operation. For example, strong coupling and large delay , multi-time-varying, uncertain, and frequency disturbances. The new demands put forward by the power grid such as dynamic electricity prices, intelligent dispatching, and spot power trading have increasingly higher requirements for the dynamic and real-time nature of thermal power. If thermal power is still mainly operated manually , it is difficult to meet demand. These unpredictable internal and external challenges urgently require the thermoelectric industry to improve its digitalization and intelligence level.”

In addition, intelligent development can also improve efficiency and achieve energy conservation and emission reduction. Zhang Dongfang, director of the Industry Research Department of Shanghai Electric Technology Venture Capital Co., Ltd., pointed out that if the power industry, a large carbon emitter, wants to reduce carbon emissions, it must either change the power structure or take measures to save energy. In tapping the energy-saving potential, we can improve efficiency by using better equipment, or help enterprises operate better through technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. “Intelligent development will play a great role in improving the automation dispatch and automation level of power grids and thermal power plants. For example, through big data technology, data extracted from equipment can be associated to discover periodic patterns and provide design solutions. services and improve efficiency; artificial intelligence can solve the shortage of personnel and skills in power plants, and achieve lean operations, precise maintenance, etc.”

Technology has developed

In March this year, the National Energy Administration issued the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Energy Digitalization and Intelligentization” which pointed out that it is necessary to promote the deep integration of digital technology and the development of the energy industry, and strengthen the construction of new infrastructure that integrates traditional energy and digital intelligent technology. , release the value potential of energy data elements, effectively improve the level of energy digitalization and intelligent development, promote the development of energy digital economy and green low-carbon circular economy, and build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system. This means that in order to enhance the core competitiveness of my country’s energy industry and support the high-quality development of energy, the digital and intelligent development of energy is of great significance.

It is worth mentioning that the current intelligent development of the thermoelectric industry has accumulated technology, and the industry is gradually entering the era of intelligence. For example, Quanying Technology’s fifth-generation ADMC thermoelectric intelligent control system can realize intelligent thermoelectric control, automatic operation, intelligent optimization, and digital management by deploying cloud-edge collaboration, autonomous learning, and intelligent control.

On the corporate side, many thermal power plants have also undergone intelligent upgrades. For example, Ningbo Zhongmao Hangzhou Bay Thermal Power Plant has completed the intelligent upgrade of the complex system of 7 furnaces and 6 machines, and is deploying and implementing a denitrification intelligent system; Ningbo Energy Group’s Jinhua Ningneng Thermal Power, Mingzhou Thermal Power, Xiebei Thermal Power and other power plants have also All have implemented digital and intelligent upgrades; Haining Maqiao Metropolitan Thermal Power Plant was awarded the title of “Digital Energy Research Demonstration Base”.

Zhang Rongrong, general manager of Haining Maqiao Metropolis Thermal Power Co., Ltd., told a reporter from China Energy News that the thermal power plant has undergone digital and intelligent upgrades, which has greatly eased the labor intensity of personnel and reduced the complexity of their work. “Originally, workers’ work was very intense, requiring a high degree of concentration and non-stop operation. But now, intelligent control not only eases workers’ nervousness, but also improves efficiency through more accurate data.”

According to Xia Jiantao, chairman of Shanghai Quanying Technology Co., Ltd., based on corporate usage data, thermal power plants can improve efficiency by an average of 1.5%-3%. “Taking Haining Maqiao Metropolitan Thermal Power as an example, through energy conservation and efficiency improvement, it can save more than 4 million yuan in coal costs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 8,000 tons a year.”

Upgrade intelligence

Li Jun, an expert member of the Zhejiang Provincial Energy Standardization Technical Committee, believes that for the thermoelectric industry, intelligent applications must also pay attention to safety. “This security is divided into internal security and external security: internal security mainly depends on the reliability of the equipment. During the process of intelligent transformation and upgrading, attention should be paid to simultaneous upgrades of software and hardware to improve the sensitivity of secondary instrument execution; external security It refers to 5G networks, big data applications, etc., which will enter a state of interconnection of everything in the future. How to establish a good firewall while undergoing intelligent transformation still needs to be further discussed.”

Min Wei, general manager of Hangzhou Hanglian Thermal Power Co., Ltd., pointed out that in the future, intelligence in the thermal power industry will play more roles in economics in addition to system control. “For example, it can be combined with cost accounting to become a real-time cost control system. The intelligent system can shorten the employee learning process and better mobilize human resources.”

Xia Jiantao also said: “Although safety officers are indispensable in the thermal power industry due to safety issues, the industry is also committed to reducing personnel, realizing full operation of artificial intelligence, and automatic operation of thermal power plants in all working conditions at all times.”