China’s First Edge Computing Equipment for Coal-fired Power Plants Connected to DCS

Guodian Inner Mongolia Energy Co., Ltd. under China Energy joined hands with CHN Energy Zhishen Control Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhongying Qingchuang Technology Co., Ltd. to complete the connection of the intelligent edge computing equipment with the IPC video network, filling in the void of DCS (Distributed Control System) alarm sets based on edge computing and intelligent visual chip recognition devices in the IPC system for coal-fired power plants.

Through innovative application of edge computing, FPGA chip and DCS in the coal-fired power industry, the project enabled the diagnosis results of gas and water leakage of pneumatic water-feeding pumps of the No.2 generation unit to be transferred to the DCS alert set in the No.1 zone. The edge computing distributed network and AI recognition chip have unprecedented advantage in industrial control for coal-fired power plants. The recognition system can support thousands of cameras at the same time, so as to realize millisecond-level leakage detection and activate the alarm system. Its feedback latency is less than 300 milliseconds. Through the conversion of the TCP/IP and MODBUS protocols, the signal feedback latency will be reduced to no more than 60 milliseconds, thus meeting the requirement of high-precision industrial equipment control and ensuring the safety and feasibility of edge computing-based intelligent equipment with AI chips connected to the IPC system of coal-fired power plants.