Concentrate solar thermal energy electric power plant logic boiler

Abstract

A logic boiler that consists of a concentrated solar energy boiler, a thermal storage system, and a traditional fossil fuel boiler is replacement of the traditional fossil fuel boiler in a power plant for solar thermal electric power generation. The thermal storage system or fossil fuel boiler compensates the output steam of the solar energy boiler to provide on demand, reliable and regulated steam for steam turbine. The controls sequences provide results that maximize the output of the solar boiler while provide the regulated and fast responded steam to the turbine. The control sequences also provide an algorithm to store excessive thermal energy from the solar energy boiler into the thermal storage system. The power plant sees the logic boiler as a conventional boiler without knowing the details of working sequences between the solar boiler and fossil fuel boiler or thermal storage.

1 . A logic boiler is designed to be in replacement of the conventional boiler in a fossil fuel burned steam power plant, is controlled and monitored by valves, redundant sensors and redundant controllers, is taking the commands from the power plant controller and send requested information back to power plant controller, is with redundant circuits for reliabilities, provides stable, on demand, and reliable steam to turbine, provides thermal storage energy charge and discharge functions, consists of a steam mixer, consists of a solar boiler and a thermal storage system, or consists of a solar boiler and a fossil fuel boiler, or a solar boiler and a thermal storage system and a fossil fuel boiler. 
   
   
       2 . A logic boiler controller as set forth in  claim 1  wherein said controller consists of redundant boiler master computers, redundant boiler local area networks, redundant solar tower boiler controllers, optional redundant fossil fuel boiler controllers, optional redundant thermal storage controllers, and redundant logic level controllers with redundant drivers and redundant sensors. 
   
   
       3 . A logic boiler steam mixer as set forth in  claim 1  wherein said mixer consists of sensors for monitoring the input steam parameters, controllable valves for adjust input steam flow rate, a buffer for helping to regulate the output steam conditions, a senor for monitoring the steam parameters in the buffer, a controllable value for adjust the output steam parameters, and a sensor for monitoring the output steam parameters. 
   
   
       4 . The redundant circuits as set forth in  claim 1  wherein said redundant circuits consist of computer or microprocessor reset level circuits, the sensor redundancy circuits, and the redundant driver circuits. 
   
   
       5 . The thermal storage charge and discharge functions as set forth in  claim 1  wherein said thermal storage energy charge and discharge functions are controlled by the logic boiler controller through reroute the steam to thermal storage system and internal working mode of the thermal storage system. 
   
   
       6 . The computer or microprocessor reset level circuits as set forth in  claim 4  wherein said computer or microprocessor reset level circuits consists of input and output buffers, and reset level decoders, is controlled by the redundant computer or microprocessor. The reset algorithm start with the level 1, if failed, it will goes level 2, and then if failed again, it will go next high level. 
   
   
       7 . The sensor redundancy circuits as set forth in  claim 4  wherein said sensor redundancy circuits consists of at the least three set of sensors and two pair of independent read out systems that connect to microprocessor of redundant to each other.