On December 15, CHN Energy made significant progress in smart power generation, as its project Research and Application of Key Technologies for Unmanned Smart Power Generation passed technical appraisal by the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering. The project was successfully implemented at Unit 1 of the 600 MW coal-fired power unit at Dingzhou Power Plant under CHN Energy Hebei Branch, achieving fully autonomous operation. This marks a key milestone in the Group's efforts to advance unmanned smart power generation.
CHN Energy is actively addressing the technological demands of the new power system by tackling challenges such as deep peak shaving, rapid load variations, ultra-low emissions and efficient power generation. The Group has been exploring the intelligent transformation of coal power. In collaboration with institutions such as North China Electric Power University and Southeast University, it developed a fully integrated intelligent control system that combines autonomous control, decision-making, fault-tolerant control and self-organizing scheduling functions. This system establishes a smart power generation framework for unmanned operations, integrating autonomy, intelligence, adaptability and human-machine collaboration. It enhances adaptability across all processes and operating conditions, marking a major breakthrough in transitioning from conventional automation to highly autonomous operation.
In terms of technological innovation, CHN Energy has created an intelligent control platform that integrates data and knowledge mining. This platform enables the efficient organization, scheduling, elastic expansion and flexible deployment of algorithms, computational power and systems during the production control process, supporting the application of new control strategies and artificial intelligence. The project also introduced a multi-level intelligent control architecture for coal-fired units, encompassing basic control, collaborative scheduling and intelligent decision-making layers. It developed advanced control algorithms, including multi-modal model predictive control, rule-based expert control and intelligent decision-making based on multi-level state machines. These innovations achieved full autonomous and intelligent control for large-capacity coal-fired power units.
The project’s outcomes have been successfully applied to Unit 1 of the 600 MW unit at Dingzhou Power Plant, implementing a semi-automated operation mode for the coal-fired unit with stable and reliable performance, yielding significant economic and social benefits. Third-party tests revealed that during the 168-hour continuous operational trial, the unit reduced total operations by 91.8% compared to similar units. This led to a revolutionary decrease in daily operations, from 3,700 to 249, well below the national average for domestic coal-fired units. This improvement significantly reduced the operational workload for staff.
Looking ahead, CHN Energy plans to further advance the application of smart power generation technology, striving to make unmanned smart power generation the norm and contributing valuable insights and experience to global energy transformation and sustainable development.
