To accommodate the renewable power with highly time-varying characteristics

coal-fired power plants operate under the deep load regulation conditions and rapid load cycling processes for a long time. It is essential to evaluate the transient energy consumption characteristics during load cycling processes. In this study

an analysis model of energy consumption characteristics during load cycling transient processes is developed by mechanism-data hybrid driven approach. Mechanistic frameworks for the boiler and steam turbine systems are first formulated based on the unsteady-state energy balance and the equivalent enthalpy drop method

respectively. Subsequently

data-driven methods are applied to quantify the effects of thermal storage variation on the boiler system and the heat-to-work conversion performance of the steam turbine. Through this hybrid approach

the real-time energy consumption characteristics of coal-fired power plants during load cycling transient processes are effectively analyzed. With a 300 MW subcritical coal-fired power plant as the reference case

real-time energy consumption characteristics of the boiler system

steam turbine system and the entire plant are analyzed. When the unit power output increases from 147 MW to 285 MW

the thermal efficiency of the power plant increases from 40.5% to 42.5%

and the standard coal consumption rate decreases gradually from 303.2 g/(kW•h) to 289.3 g/(kW•h). In the load cycling process

the correction for boiler heat storage on the standard coal consumption rate is 1.26 g/(kW•h). The maximum load ramp rate is 0.3%Pe(rated power)/min

yet the transient average coal consumption rate increases by up to 1.09 g/(kW•h) compared to steady-state conditions. The results indicate that the proposed mechanism-data hybrid-driven model can effectively characterize the transient energy consumption characteristics of coal-fired power plants during load-cycling processes

and reveal the effects of boiler thermal storage and transient operation on unit coal consumption.