Modelling and optimisation of electricity,steam and district heating production for a local Swedish utility

District heating may help reduce environmental impact and energy costs, but policy instruments and waste management may influence operations. The energy system optimisation model MODEST has been used for 50 towns, regions and a nation. Investments and operation that satisfy energy demand at minimum cost are found through linear programming. This paper describes the application of MODEST to a municipal utility, which uses several fuels and cogeneration plants. The model reflects diurnal and monthly demand fluctuations.Several studies of the Linköping utility are reviewed. These indicate that the marginal heat cost is lower in summer; a new waste or wood fired cogeneration plant is more profitable than a natural-gas-fired combined cycle; material recycling of paper and hard plastics is preferable to waste incineration from an energy-efficiency viewpoint; and considering external costs enhances wood fuel use. Here, an emission limit is used to show how fossil-fuel cogeneration displaces CO₂ from coal-condensing plants.     

Energy in industry — The role for OR

For too long Operational Research teams in manufacturing industry have regarded energy used in the manufacturing process as a fixed resource. This article can provide the basis for very significant savins in production costs, improved product quality and a better environment. But there has been a failure on the part of those responsible in Industry to adopt the new technology.A number of leading industrial nations have already recognised the benefits of the electric route to growth. They are improving their international competitiveness and GDP by substituting electricity for more expensive fossil fuels.The message of this article should not be seen as a simple advertisement for electricity—there is too much at stake. Given the evidence presented here, the contribution which OR can make to Industry cannot be underestimated.     

Multicriteria ranking of alternative locations for small scale hydro plants

Since energy consumption and its costs have recently rapidly increased, ‘small scale’ hydroplants (HP) are being widely used as energy sources. Our objective is to deal with the problem of small HP construction in a wide area covering many regions. The problem is to select some locations for each region by using the same methodology in order to make the unit costs as low as possible. When considering this problem, besides economical criteria, some other criteria must also be taken into account, such as technical, social, environmental etc. Multicriteria analysis is a quite realistic approach to such a complex problem which includes, among the others, some conflicting criteria. We have found that the Promethee method is well adapted to this problem, since its flexibility enables the decision maker to express precisely his preferences and stable results can be easily obtained by a sensitivity analysis. In this paper the problem is formulated, the criteria are estimated and quantified, and location planning is obtained by using the Promethee methodology. The obtained solutions are discussed and the computational results are given.     

The dynamic stability of an elastic column

Lyapunov's second method is used to investigate the stability of the rectilinear equilibrium modes of a non-linearly elastic thin rod (column) compressed at its end. Stability here is implied relative to certain integral characteristics, of the type of norms in Sobolev spaces; the analysis is carried out for all values of the problem parameter except the bifurcation values.

The realm of problems connected with the Lagrange-Dirichlet equilibrium stability theorem and its converse involves specific difficulties when considered in the infinite-dimensional case: stability in infinite-dimensional systems is investigated relative to certain integral characteristics such as norms /1/, and as the latter may be chosen with a certain degree of arbitrariness, different choices may result in different stability results. On the other hand, there is no relaxation of any of the difficulties encountered in the case of a finite number of degrees of freedom.

We shall consider a certain natural mechanical system with a finite number of degrees of freedom. If the first non-trivial form of the potential energy expansion is positive-definite, the equilibrium position is stable. A similar statement has been proved for infinitely many dimensions as well /1–3/, using Lyapunov's direct method, and the total energy may play the role of the Lyapunov function.

The situation with respect to instability is more complex. In the finite-dimensional case, if the first non-trivial form of the potential energy expansion may take negative values, instability may be demonstrated in many cases by means of a function proposed by Chetayev in /4/. A general theorem has been proved /1/ for instability in infinitely many dimensions, relying on an analogue of Chetayev's function. Such functions have also been used /5, 6/ to prove the instability of equilibrium in specific linear systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom.

However, Chetayev's functions /4/ are not suitable tools to prove the instability of equilibrium in most non-linear systems. Another “Chetayev function”, which is actually a perturbed form of Chetayev's original function from /4/, has been proposed /7/, and it has been used to prove instability when the equilibrium position is an isolated critical point of the first non-trivial form of the potential energy expansion.

The majority of problems concerning the onset of instability of equilibrium configurations of elastic systems have been considered from a quasistatic point of view (see, e.g., /8, 9/). Problems of elastic stability and instability were considered in a dynamical setting in /2, 5/, where stability was investigated by Lyapunov's direct method. However, most of the results obtained in this branch of the field concern linear systems, and there are extremely few publications dealing with the onset of instability in non-linear elastic systems using Lyapunov's direct method. This is because in an unstable elastic system the quadratic part of the potential energy may change sign, and therefore the analogues of Chetayev's function from /4/ are not usually suitable for solving these problems. Dynamic instability has been studied or a specific non-linearly elastic system /10/, with the fact of instability established by using an analogue of the Chetayev function from /7/.

This paper presents one more example of a study of dynamic instability crried out for a non-linearly elastic system by Lyapunov's direct method.     

Energy-aware workload management models for operation cost reduction in data centers

In the last century, the costs of powering datacenters have increased so quickly, that datacenter power bills now dwarf the IT hardware bills. Many large infrastructure programs have been developed in the past few years to reduce the energy consumption of datacenters, especially with respect to cooling requirements. Although these methods are effective in lowering the operation costs they do require large upfront investments. It is therefore not surprising that some datacenters have been unable to utilize the above means and as a result are still struggling with high energy bills. In this work we present a cheap addition to or an alternative to such investments as we propose the use of intelligent, energy efficient, system allocation mechanisms in place of current packaged system schedulers available in modern hardware infrastructure cutting server power costs by 40%. We pursue both the quest for (1) understanding the energy costs generated in operation as well has how to utilize this information to (2) allocate computing tasks efficiently in a cost minimizing optimization approach. We were able to underline the energy savings potential of our models compared to current state-of-the-art schedulers. However, since this allocation problem is complex (NP-hard) we investigated various model approximations in a trade-off between computational complexity and allocative efficiency. As a part of this investigation, we evaluate how changes in system configurations impact the goodness of our results in a full factorial parametric evaluation.     

Cost Comparisons for Out-of-Phase Inventory Models

Inventory costs for a fixed time period have traditionally been determined by allocating total costs per cycle uniformly throughout that cycle as well as any partial cycles. This procedure for cost allocation has led to the solution of numerous inventory problems, most notable of which is the anticipated price-increase model. When comparing two out-of-phase inventory models, if costs are accounted for when they occur over a fixed planning horizon, inventory policies should be changed to reflect the impact of this different cost-allocation procedure. For the anticipated price-increase model, the ‘optimal’ order quantity as well as the implied savings in inventory costs will be different when cost models are developed based on these different cost-allocation methods. If the objective is to maximize over a fixed planning horizon the actual savings in inventory costs as they occur, the cost models presented here should be used.     

Application of discrete-event simulation in health care clinics: A survey

In recent decades, health care costs have dramatically increased, while health care organisations have been under severe pressure to provide improved quality health care for their patients. Several health care administrators have used discrete-event simulation as an effective tool for allocating scarce resources to improve patient flow, while minimising health care delivery costs and increasing patient satisfaction. The rapid growth in simulation software technology has created numerous new application opportunities, including more sophisticated implementations, as well as combining optimisation and simulation for complex integrated facilities. This paper surveys the application of discrete-event simulation modeling to health care clinics and systems of clinics (for example, hospitals, outpatient clinics, emergency departments, and pharmacies). Future directions of research and applications are also discussed.     

A new multiobjective allocator of capacitor banks and distributed generations using a new investigated differential evolution

This article has investigated a new multiobjective allocation of optimal sizing and sitting of distributed generation (DG) units and capacitor banks in simultaneous mode to improve reliability and reduce energy losses. The proposed method consists of four objectives, that is, cost of energy not supplied, system average interruption duration index, costs of energy loss and investment. A novel structure differential evolution has been suggested to solve this nonlinear complex problem and its results are compared with related values of genetic algorithm and simple differential evolutionary algorithm. In addition to the novel objective function, the other contribution of this article is proposing a new model for load and energy cost. Three types of DGs, that is, wind turbine, solar cell, and diesel generator have been used in placement process. To verify the comprehensiveness of the proposed function, three scenarios have been introduced: scenario i: first, placement of DGs, then capacitor banks, scenario ii: first, placement of capacitor banks, and then DGs, and scenario iii: simultaneous placement of DGs and capacitor banks. Simulations have been carried out on one part of practical distribution network in Metropolitan Tabriz in North West of Iran. The results of simulations have been discussed and analyzed using the five novel indices. The obtained simulation results using proposed function shows that the simultaneous placement of DGs and capacitor banks results in more reduction of the energy losses and increase improvements of reliability indices as well as voltage profile. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 19: 40–54, 2014     

多状态可靠性系统动态signature及其剩余寿命分析

系统signature是分析系统可靠性的一个强有力的工具。本文研究了多状态系统的动态signature。Signature概念被拓展到多维的情形,并将其应用于两状态元件下多态关联系统的分析,得到系统在每一状态下的联合生存函数的表达式,探究了系统在时刻的动态signature,为处于工作状态的多状态系统在时刻t接受检查,发现其处于l(t)状态并且恰好已发生了q(t)次元件失效,分别给出了两状态元件多态关联系统动态signature及其剩余寿命的表达式。     

Iterative solution techniques for finite element applications

An iterative solver has been recently developed to solve very large systems of linear equations. The application of such a solver in commercial finite element software is not yet accepted. The purpose of the paper is to describe the new iterative solver and report on the practical application of this capability in different fields of interest.

The iterative solver uses the conjugate gradient method and employs two types of preconditioning: the traditional Jacobi and the incomplete Cholesky decomposition method. An option has been added for diagonal scaling to handle matrices whose entries greatly differ in magnitude. This paper illustrates the reduction possible in both central processor time and disk storage for problems with very large, well-conditioned matrices. Problems arising in electromagnetic analysis as well as in structural analysis have been solved with different options available in the iterative solver and compared with the standard, direct solver results. Guidelines on the use of the new solver and the status of research on even more efficient preconditioners are given.     

Synergy analysis of collaborative supply chain management in energy systems using multi-period MILP

Energy, a fundamental entity of modern life, is usually produced using fossil fuels as the primary raw material. A consequence of burning fossil fuels is the emission of environmentally harmful substances. Energy production systems generate steam and electricity that are served to different customers to satisfy their energy requirement. The improvement of economical and environmental performance of energy production systems is a major issue due to central role of energy in every industrial activity. A systematic approach to identify the synergy among different energy systems is addressed in this paper. The multi-period and discrete-continuous nature of the energy production systems including investment costs are modeled using MILP. The proposed approach is applied on two examples that are simplified versions of an industrial problem. It is shown that the approach presented in this paper is very effective in identifying the synergy among different companies to improve their economical and environmental performance significantly.     

Model predictive control of nonlinear hybrid systems with discrete inputs employing a hybrid fuzzy model

The paper deals with model predictive control (MPC) of nonlinear hybrid systems with discrete inputs based on reachability analysis. In order to implement a MPC algorithm, a model of the process that we are dealing with is needed. In the paper, a hybrid fuzzy modelling approach is proposed. The hybrid system hierarchy is explained and the Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy formulation for hybrid fuzzy modelling purposes is tackled. An efficient method of identification of the hybrid fuzzy model is also discussed.

An algorithm that is–due to its MPC nature–suitable for controlling a wide spectrum of systems (provided that they have discrete inputs only) is presented.

The benefits of the algorithm employing a hybrid fuzzy model are verified on a batch reactor example. The results suggest that by suitably determining the cost function, satisfactory control can be attained, even when dealing with complex hybrid–nonlinear–stiff systems such as the batch reactor.

Finally, a comparison between MPC employing a hybrid linear model and a hybrid fuzzy model is carried out. It has been established that the latter approach clearly outperforms the approach where a linear model is used.     

Sensitivity Analysis of Human Leg Metabolical Costs

The human walking is characterized by skeletal dynamics and muscle excitation patterns minimizing the metabolical energy. This criterion is applied to assess the performance of lower limb prosthetic devices, and to evaluate therapies for patients presenting gait disorders. It is desirable, therefore, to dispose models of the human normal and pathological gaits capable of estimating the metabolical energy expenditure. For the swing phase of normal and pathological gaits a musculoskeletal model of the lower limb is presented to estimate metabolical energy expenditure. The mechanical model has three degrees of freedom and is actuated by eight Hill-type muscle units, and the model for the metabolical costs is adopted from literature. In this paper a combination of inverse and direct dynamics is used, and a sensitivity analysis of the dynamical behavior and the corresponding metabolical costs estimations with respect to parametrized neural excitations is performed. The leg motions are based on experiments in a gait analysis laboratory. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

基于AGV的智能仓库系统订单分批问题研究

研究了基于自动引导小车(AGV)的“货到人”智能仓库订单分批拣选问题, 在同时考虑工作人员拣选商品成本和AGV搬运货架成本的前提下, 建立了以总成本极小化为目标函数的订单分批问题整数规划模型。根据订单中包含的商品信息和商品所在的货架信息构建了描述订单之间关系的加权相似度指标, 分析了加权相似度与总拣选成本之间的正相关关系。基于订单之间的加权相似度设计了求解模型的贪婪算法。利用具体算例进行模拟计算, 分析了加权系数的变化对订单分批结果的影响, 以及加权系数λ的取值与工作人员拣取一件商品的成本c₁和AGV搬运一次货架的成本c₂之间的关系, 得到了贪婪算法中加权系数λ的确定方法。进一步分析了贪婪算法的计算时间和计算效果, 结果显示, 通过适当选取加权系数, 利用贪婪算法可以在短时间内得到订单分批问题的近似最优解;对于小规模算例, 贪婪算法在最坏情况下近似比不超过1.35。利用本文的模型和算法进行订单分批, 兼顾了工作人员拣取商品的成本和AGV搬运货架的成本, 可以有效提高订单拣选效率, 降低订单拣选总成本。     

On Multiple Criteria Decision Support for Suppliers on the Competitive Electric Power Market

As an active participant of a competitive energy market, the generator (the energy supplier) challenges new management decisions being exposed to the financial risk environment. There is a strong need for the decision support models and tools for energy market participants. This paper shows that the stochastic short-term planning model can be effectively used as a key analytical tool within the decision support process for relatively small energy suppliers (price-takers). A self-scheduling method for the thermal units on the energy market is addressed. A schedule acquired for given preferences can be used as a desired pattern for bidding process. The uncertainty of the market prices is modeled by a set of possible scenarios with assigned probabilities. Several risk criteria are introduced leading to a multiple criteria optimization problem. The risk criteria are well appealing and easily computable (by means of linear programming) but they meet the formal risk aversion standards. The aspiration/reservation based interactive analysis applied to the multiple criteria problem allows us to find an efficient solution (generation scheme) well adjusted to the generator preferences (risk attitude).     

Influence of temperature-dependent viscosity and thermal radiation on MHD forced convection over a non-isothermal wedge

An analysis has been carried out to study heat transfer characteristics of an incompressible Newtonian electrically conducting and heat generating/absorbing fluid having temperature-dependent viscosity over a non-isothermal wedge in the presence of thermal radiation. The Rosseland approximation is used to describe the radiative heat flux in the energy equation. The wedge surface is assumed to be permeable so as to allow for possible wall suction or injection. The effects of viscous dissipation, Joule heating, stress work and thermal radiation are included in the model. The governing differential equations are derived and transformed using a non-similarity transformation. The transformed equations are solved numerically by applying a fifth-order Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg scheme with shooting technique. Favorable comparisons with previously published work on various special cases of the problem are obtained. Numerical results for the velocity and temperature profiles for a prescribed magnetic field parameter as well as the development of the local skin-friction coefficient and local Nusselt number with the magnetic field and radiation parameters are presented graphically and in tabulated form to elucidate the influence of the various physical parameters.     

Energy policy modelling in developing and industrializing countries

A large number of models have been developed and used for energy policy planning, in a regional, national or international level, in order to cope with the broad variety of issues related to the energy problem. Energy models belong to the class of policy models, which address fuzzy and complex issues involving many non-quantitative factors, such as political issues, behavioural aspects, etc., as well as many uncertainties and lack of rigorous knowledge concerning the structure of the reference system, and the interrelationships of its elements. The role of energy policy models is very important, since they enhance understanding and communication, and they assist the policymakers to review plausible future configurations of relevant decision variables and parameters. In this paper one of the most important areas of energy modelling is investigated, that concerning the interactions between energy and economy in the group of Developing and Industrializing Countries (DIC's). It is pointed out that energy models used in the DIC's must capture the particular features of energy policy in these countries, such as rapid economic development fueled by expensive, depleting and often imported energy resources; dependence on foreign resources such as energy, capital, technology, etc.; management of indigenous resources, social structural changes, rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization. In order to improve energy models and enhance their contributions in policy analysis, it is proposed that modelling efforts should be directed towards a better understanding of the energy-economy relationships in the DIC's, as well as towards the development of validated data bases.     

A heuristic for triggering emergency orders in an inventory system

This paper considers a single-echelon inventory system with a warehouse facing compound Poisson customer demand. Normally the warehouse replenishes from an outside supplier according to a continuous review reorder point policy. However, it is also possible to use emergency orders. Such orders incur additional costs but have a much shorter lead time. We consider standard holding and backorder costs as well as ordering costs. A heuristic decision rule for triggering emergency orders is suggested. The decision rule minimizes the expected costs under the assumption that there is only a single possibility for an emergency replenishment, but the rule is used repeatedly as a heuristic. Given a certain reorder point policy for normal replenishments, our decision rule will always reduce the expected costs. A simulation study illustrates that the suggested technique performs well under different conditions.     

George Dantzig in the development of economic analysis

The role of optimization is central to economic analysis, particularly in its “neoclassical” phase, since about 1870, and is therefore highly compatible with the impulse behind linear programming (LP), as developed by Dantzig. LP’s stress on alternative activities fits very well with modern economic analysis. The concept of economic equilibrium, properly understood, required the central notion of complementary slackness. so central in LP.

LP was seen as a tool for actual implementation of neoclassical principles precisely at a time when the market was under attack from several directions. The economists Koopmans and Hurwicz played an important role both in stimulating the crucial development of the simplex method and in relating LP to the world of economics.

LP became widely used in national economic planning, particularly for developing countries, and for the study of individual industries, especially the energy sector. The works of Chenery and of Manne are central in these fields.

As respect for the usefulness of the market increased, the emphasis on national planning diminished and was replaced by an emphasis on equilibrium analysis, in which LP still plays a large part in the study of individual sectors, particularly energy.     

Dynamic energy management for a novel hybrid electric system based on driving pattern recognition

This paper focuses on the dynamic energy management for Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) based on driving pattern recognition. The hybrid electric system studied in this paper includes a one-way clutch, a multi-plate clutch and a planetary gear unit as the power coupling device in the architecture. The powertrain efficiency model is established by integrating the component level models for the engine, the battery and the Integrated Starter/Generator (ISG). The powertrain system efficiency has been analyzed at each operation mode, including electric driving mode, driving and charging mode, engine driving mode and hybrid driving mode. The mode switching schedule of HEV system has been designed based on static system efficiency. Adaptive control for hybrid electric vehicles under random driving cycles with battery life and fuel consumption as the main considerations has been optimized by particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO). Furthermore, driving pattern recognition based on twenty typical reference cycles has been implemented using cluster analysis. Finally, the dynamic energy management strategy for the hybrid electric vehicle has been proposed based on driving pattern recognition. The simulation model of the HEV powertrain system has been established on Matlab/Simulink platform. Two energy management strategies under random driving condition have both been implemented in the study, one is knowledge-based and the other is based on driving pattern recognition. The model simulation results have validated the control strategy for the hybrid electric vehicle in this study in terms of drive pattern recognition and energy management optimization.