An On-Line Integrated Control System for Reducing Coal Costs and Coal-Related Emissions: Coal Blend Automation System (CBAS)

In 1995, TransAlta Utilities and Dairyland Power agreed to participate in a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to demonstrate a power plant optimization software product developed by Praxis Engineers, Inc. The product, the Plant Environmental and Cost Optimization System (PECOS{trademark}), considers the power plant in its entirety from coal receipts and yard management to solid by-products and emissions. Its basic goal is to minimize the controllable costs of power generation. PECOS does so by performing an on-line analysis of all operations and their co-optimization to achieve a minimum generation cost. The software acts as an advisor to the plant operators and computes settings that achieve this goal. A general schematic of PECOS is given