[Objective] The “New Generation Coal Power Upgrade Special Action Plan” imposes increasingly stringent requirements on the load change rate of thermal power generating units

thereby intensifying the inherent contradiction between rapid load response and the safety and stability constraints of the unit itself. In power systems with high penetration of renewable energy

coal-fired units are required to perform frequent and high-rate load adjustments to maintain grid balance and frequency stability. However

from the perspective of traditional control theory

the furnace side of a thermal power unit exhibits pronounced characteristics of large inertia

significant time delay

strong nonlinearity

and multivariable coupling. These intrinsic dynamic properties fundamentally limit achievable control performance and bandwidth. If strict asymptotic stability is enforced throughout the entire transient process

controller design must prioritize monotonic convergence

inevitably sacrificing response speed; conversely

aggressively shortening the regulation time tends to induce substantial oscillations in fuel flow and main steam pressure

which may undermine operational safety and accelerate mechanical wear. Consequently

control strategies developed under conventional Lyapunov stability theory struggle to reconcile the essential trade-off between stability and rapidity. To address this challenge

the concept of finite-time stability is introduced into the coordinated control framework of thermal power units. Unlike classical stability notions that require trajectories to converge asymptotically and monotonically

finite-time stability allows for controlled transient deviations and brief instability during the dynamic evolution

provided that the system states converge to a desired equilibrium within a prescribed finite time interval. This relaxation significantly reduces the conservatism inherent in traditional stability analysis and enlarges the feasible design region for performance optimization

thereby providing greater flexibility for enhancing dynamic response while preserving overall convergence guarantees. [Methods] Building upon this theoretical foundation

an event-driven coordinated control method suitable for high-rate load variations is proposed. First

the multivariable nonlinear control object is simplified into an equivalent model incorporating aggregated disturbances to facilitate controller synthesis and robustness evaluation. Second

a dual-layer eventdriven coordinated control architecture is constructed

comprising a supervisory coordination layer and a lowerlevel regulation layer responsible for actuator implementation. Finally

within a constrained stability margin

a robust design methodology is employed to derive explicit event-triggering conditions that balance performance improvement and stability assurance. [Results and Conclusion] Simulation results demonstrate that under load disturbances at a rate of 3% of rated load per minute

the proposed approach limits throttle pressure deviation to less than 0.3 MPa and fuel flow fluctuations less than 15%

thereby verifying its effectiveness

robustness

and practical applicability in flexible operation scenarios.