Survey on Intelligent Control Approaches for Prediction of Boiler Efficiency in Thermal Power Plant

Thermal power plant consumes large amount of coal to generate heat and electricity. Scarcity of coal targets energy saving and emission reduction. Optimal usage of coal in boiler of thermal plant can be achieved through accurate values of boiler operation parameters. Power plant operator faces the challenge of examining the data and evaluates these values for optimal performance of the plant operation. Usage of theory of thermodynamics in complex, uncertain, non-stable, inertial, time-delaying, and nonlinear of combustion process is difficult. Hence, many researchers proposed expert systems (called as combustion model of the boiler) to monitor and control the run-time efficiency and heat rate of the boiler and to suggest appropriate actions for the operation. Recent, expert system used to model the thermal efficiency of the pulverized coal furnace are mainly based on intelligent control approaches. In this paper, we categorize all up-to-date and published works based on current intelligent control approaches for prediction of boiler efficiency into three groups’ rule-based expert systems, soft-computing techniques and hybrid system. Their findings and important contributions are highlighted.