With the continual construction of oversize hydroelctronic projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, Xiluodu Hydropower Station and Xiangjia Dam, Chinese ovesize hydroelctronic generating set has accounted for 60% of the world’s total. But for a long time,control systems for hydro turbine , the core control equipment of oversize hydroelectric generating set relies totally on imports. On Jan, 8th, the project conducted by Professor Wei Shouping’s team- The Critical Technology ,Complet Set of Equipment & Industrialization of Oversize Hydro Turbine Control System won the National Second Award for Science and Technology Progress. This project not only breaks the long term foreign monopoly of the core technology of oversize hydroelectronic generating set, but also made many innovations.
The control system for oversize hydro turbine consists of three parts: the water diversion system, hydro turbine, power generator and grid & load. The control system for oversize hydro turbine adjust the guide vane and blades of hydra turbines that control the power output of the generating set. In use, hydro turbine control system must maintain a good control performance, control the generating set quickly and steadily and serve the grid. It can work continuously for several months with a strict requirement for control performance and reliability. However, for a long time, China has failed to grasp its core technology.
With the ever increasing capacity of hydro turbine generating set, foreign hydro turbine control technology has failed to keep pace with the development of hydroelectronic generating set. Problems such as slow reaction speed, great fluctuation in the adjustment process and obliged halt emerge one after another, even triggering the tragedy of Samnang Hydropower Station. Oversize hydro turbine control has emerged as a major problem to the safe and highly-efficient operation of hydroelectronic generating set.
Since 1982, Prof.Wei Shouping’s team has been devoted to theory,research and development of microcomputer hydro tubine control sysytems. In the past 30 years, the team has made innovations in the three sub systems of hydro turbine control system: adjustment,transfer and hydraulic machinery. In terms of the adjustment technology, the team found the reason for inaccuracy of the application of hydroelectronic generating set classical model in oversize hydroturbine control sysytem design and put forward a new grid combining equivalent damping model and the reservoir-generating set-grid coupling analysis model.Therefore, the team further researched and developped a new adaptive adjustment technology and hydro turbine adaptive microcomputer adjuster, achieving a quick and steady adjustment to various kinds of generating sets as well as engineering environments.
In terms of transfer system and the hydraulic machinery with a strict requirement for performance, Prof.Wei’s team made even more innovations.In making up the complete set of equipment, Prof,Wei’s team invented the module level crossing redundant dual microcomputer governor, improving the reliability of the system.
Thanks to the innovation in comprehensive technology, theory and equipment, the team finally developped the complete set of equipment of Asymmetric redundancy control system of oversize hydro turbine with a brand new mechanism, achieving the innovation in the complete set of equipment of oversize hydro turbine control system with Chinese characteristics.
The innovation in technology and equipment further pushes forwards the development of theory. In the past 30 years, Prof.Wei Shouping’s team published nearly 40 academic papers in this area. Besides, he also published 4 monographs, thus establishing a complete system of hydro turbine control system from theoretical analysis, optimum design, product development to engineering application.
Prof.Wei thinks that the most daunting period of R & D is in the 1980s.“ At that time, we didn’t have computers with such a high performance. All our work relies on a Z-80 single board computer”, recalled the Professor, debugging the programme by a single board computer is rather difficult, not only is the capacity limited but also the input and change of programme is not as easy as the operation in current computers.
With the rapid developement of information technology, Professor Wei’s team pioneered in using the programmable controller and module level crossing redundant dual microcomputer governor with a comprehensive grasp of the hydro turbine control technology. And in 2003, their technology was firstly applied in Ertan Hydropower Station with the largest generation set capacity of 550,000 kw in China, successfully replacing the microcomputer control system of the 6 imported sets of equipment.
In 2009, the hydro turbine control system developped by Professor Wei’s team was applied in the Goupitan 600,000 Kw generating set, taking the lead in the application of national industralized complete set of equipment in oversize generating set. In the next five years, this system was successively in the Three Gorges 770,000 Kw generating set, Xiluodu 770,000 Kw generating set and Xiangjia Dam 800,000 Kw generating set with the world’s largest unit capacity.
Since 2009, the equipment developped by the team has occupied 65% of the domestic market share of the complet set equipment of oversize hydro turbine, its completing unit ranks the first among the global enterprises supplying a complet set of equipment of over 700,000 Kw. Nearly 900 sets of equipment have been exported to nearly 40 countries including Russian Federation, Brazil and Great Britain with an added tax revenue of 200 billion yuan in the past three years.
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