Renewable energy sources, presently constituting about 23% of the total Italian power production, are featured by very discontinuous supply during the day that, to avoid grid malfunctions, must be compensated by fossil fuelled power plants. The latter must hence be able to rapidly control power supply. This paper proposes a power regulation system for coal power plants, consisting in the bypass of the low pressure pre-heaters in order to increase the steam flow-rate in turbine. The main advantage of this system is the limited thermo-mechanical stress induced in the pre-heaters. The solution effectiveness is investigated through a Matlab-Simulink model. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
