Estimation of Moisture Content in Coal in Coal Mills

For coal-fired power plants information of the moisture content in the coal is important to determine and control the dynamical behavior of the power plants. E.g. a high moisture content in the coal can result in a decreased maximum load gradient of the plant. In this paper a method for estimating the moisture content of the coal is proposed based on a simple dynamic energy model of a coal mill, which pulverizes and dries the coal before it is burned in the boiler. An optimal unknown input observer is designed to estimate the moisture content based on an energy balance model. The designed moisture estimator is verified on a couple of sets of measurement data, from which it is concluded that the designed estimator estimates the real coal moisture content