Increasing the energy efficiency of heat generating plants by automatic control

The aim of introduction of an automatic control system into production processes, among other, is lesser consumption of energy and environment protection. However, researches have shown that, even in industrially developed countries, regulatory circles often are not adequately tuned. Consequences of that are poor performances of a production system (bad quality and shorter life of products, higher consumption of energy, often equipment failure, greater pollution of the environment, etc.). In more than 95% of cases, the most present are still PID (i.e. PI) regulators although they do not provide the best features with thermo-energetic systems. Using relatively cheap computer based control systems, a possibility of getting more optimal solutions with a change in a control algorithm arises. Thereby only the software realization changes, while changes in the system hardware structure are minimal. Criteria of optimization can be different. In our case, that is lesser consumption of energy. The aim for the duration of the project is to test different control models and make the adjustment of the controllers for different energetic processes, according to the aforementioned criteria.