I have written two textbooks on control technology as applied to power stations. I wanted these to provide a simple overview of what is in fact a very complicated subject. My intention was to provide a simple lead-in, which would provide engineers with an adequate foundation. I also wanted to expose some of the complex issues, so that people writing specifications or evaluating system behaviour could look for key performance indices.
The problem is that there are many control companies, with all sorts of powerful technologies at their disposal, who simply don't understand the realities of the power-station environment. I have seen systems with superb graphical displays, that have failed to perform adequately because the actuators, dampers and valves through which their commands are executed are inadequate, poorly designed or badly maintained. The last of these is more often the result of inadequate funding being given to maintenance. Administrator who are stunned and seduced by amazing operator displays and claims of great power and speed, often spend thousands on the system that would be far better spent on maintaining the definitely un-glamorous business end of each control loop - the actuators sitting out there in the heat, dirt and vibration of the plant.
There are some very expensive books on power stations. If you whittle away the glossy colour pictures (sometimes duplicated in different chapters!) and the descriptions of equipments and technologies that are at best transient and at worst obsolete, they could be reduced to a couple of hundred pages of core information that is at all useful.
So, here are my two offerings:
Boiler Control Systems, published by McGraw-Hill in 1991 (ISBN: 978-0077073749)
Power Plant Instrumentation and Control, published in 2000 by what is now called the Institution of Engineering and Technology (ISBN: 978-0852967652)
I often wonder if I should do it again, but the problem is that I am nowadays not involved directly with the industry – and I know that the value of the work would be enhanced by close contact with the latest and best practice. One way would be for me to work in collaboration with one of the big power companies, so that I could produce a book that is really up-to-date and comprehensive. Somehow, I don’t think that the money-people who run the industries these days would be at all interested. They wouldn’t see the value of such a book, and I would also be likely to criticize some of the cost-cutting and short-termistic measures that they are inclined to favour!
