Planning the production of a fleet of domestic combined heat and power generators

• Published in: European journal of operational research Vol. 216; no. 1; pp. 140 - 151
• Main Authors: Bosman, M.G.C., Bakker, V., Molderink, A., Hurink, J.L., Smit, G.J.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 2012; Elsevier; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Combined heat and power; Complexity; Domestic; Dynamic programming; Electricity; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Generators; Households; Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy; Installations for industrial steam generation; Inventory control, production control. Distribution; Logistics; Marketing; Mathematical models; Mathematical programming; Microgeneration; Motor vehicle fleets; Operational research; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Production planning; Scheduling; Studies; Supply chain management; Supplying; Scheduling; Microgeneration; Complexity; Micropower plant; Local search; Fleet; Cogeneration; Household; Search algorithm; Integer programming; Production management; Energy supply; Production planning; Dynamic programming; Combined power plant; Logistics
• ISSN: 0377-2217; 1872-6860
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2011.07.033

► Modeling a scheduling problem arising in the energy supply chain to plan a fleet of microCHP appliances. ► Developing a dynamic programming (DP) approach for the planning problem for a single house. ► Developing an iterative approach for the fleet scheduling problem based on the DP approach for the single house. This paper describes a planning problem, arising in the energy supply chain, that deals with the planning of the production runs of micro combined heat and power (microCHP) appliances installed in houses, cooperating in a fleet. Two types of this problem are described. The first one is the Single House Planning Problem (SHPP), where the focus is on supplying heat in the household. The second one combines many microCHPs into a Fleet Planning Problem (FPP) and focuses on the mutual electricity output, while still considering the local heat demand in the individual households. The problem is modeled as an ILP. For practical use a local search method is developed for the FPP, based on a dynamic programming formulation of the SHPP.