Controllability Analysis and Decentralized Control of a Wet Limestone Flue Gas Desulfurization Plant

Presently, decentralized feedback control is the only control strategy used in wet limestone flue gas desulfurization (WLFGD) plants. Proper tuning of this control strategy is becoming an important issue in WLFGD plants because more stringent SO2 regulations have come into force recently. Controllability analysis is a highly valuable tool for proper design of control systems, but it has not been applied to WLFGD plants so far. In this paper a decentralized control strategy is designed and applied to a WLFGD pilot plant taking into account the conclusions of a controllability analysis. The results reveal that good SO2 control in WLFGD plants can be achieved mainly because the main disturbance of the process is well-aligned with the plant and interactions between control loops are beneficial to SO2 control.