Energy Efficient Policies, Scheduling, and Design for Sustainable Manufacturing Systems

Climate mitigation, more stringent regulations, rising energy costs, and sustainable manufacturing are pushing researchers to focus on energy efficiency, energy flexibility, and implementation of renewable energy sources in manufacturing systems. This thesis aims to analyze the main works proposed regarding these hot topics, and to fill the gaps in the literature. First, a detailed literature review is proposed. Works regarding energy efficiency in different manufacturing levels, in the assembly line, energy saving policies, and the implementation of renewable energy sources are analyzed. Then, trying to fill the gaps in the literature, different topics are analyzed more in depth. In the single machine context, a mathematical model aiming to align the manufacturing power required to a renewable energy supply in order to obtain the maximum profit is developed. The model is applied to a single work center powered by the electric grid and by a photovoltaic system; afterwards, energy storage is also added to the power system. Analyzing the job shop context, switch off policies implementing workload approach and scheduling considering variable speed of the machines and power constraints are proposed. The direct and indirect workloads of the machines are considered to support the switch on/off decisions. A simulation model is developed to test the proposed policies compared to others presented in the literature. Regarding the job shop scheduling, a fixed and variable power constraints are considered, assuming the minimization of the makespan as the objective function. Studying the factory level, a mathematical model to design a flow line considering the possibility of using switch-off policies is developed. The design model for production lines includes a targeted imbalance among the workstations to allow for defined idle time. Finally, the main findings, results, and the future directions and challenges are presented

A Novel Pricing Algorithm Based on Reward-Punishment Mechanism for Supply and Demand Balancing

Demand response (DR) is a powerful tool to maintain the stability of the power system and maximize the profit of the electricity market, where the customers engage in the pricing scheme and adjust their electricity demand proactively based on the price. In DR programs, most existing works are based on the assumption that the prediction of the electricity demand from customers is always accurate and trustworthy, which will lead to high cost and fluctuation of the electricity market once the prediction is obeyed. In this paper, we design a reward and punishment mechanism to constrain customers’ dishonest behaviors and propose a novel pricing algorithm based on the reward and punishment mechanism to relax the assumption, which guarantees the total electricity demands of all customers are within a secure range and obtain the maximum profit of the supplier. Meanwhile, we obtain the optimal demand and provide a upper and lower bound of the proposed price for the electricity market. In addition to a single type of customer, we also consider multiple types of customers, each of whom has different characteristics to prices. Extensive simulation results are constructed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared with other pricing algorithms. It also shows that the average electricity consumption of a whole community is mostly affected by the residents’ electricity consumption and the balance of the supply and all types of customers is achieved under the proposed pricing algorithm

Energy-aware coordination of machine scheduling and support device recharging in production systems

Electricity generation from renewable energy sources is crucial for achieving climate targets, including greenhouse gas neutrality. Germany has made significant progress in increasing renewable energy generation. However, feed-in management actions have led to losses of renewable electricity in the past years, primarily from wind energy. These actions aim to maintain grid stability but result in excess renewable energy that goes unused. The lost electricity could have powered a multitude of households and saved CO2 emissions. Moreover, feed-in management actions incurred compensation claims of around 807 million Euros in 2021. Wind-abundant regions like Schleswig-Holstein are particularly affected by these actions, resulting in substantial losses of renewable electricity production. Expanding the power grid infrastructure is a costly and time-consuming solution to avoid feed-in management actions. An alternative approach is to increase local electricity consumption during peak renewable generation periods, which can help balance electricity supply and demand and reduce feed-in management actions. The dissertation focuses on energy-aware manufacturing decision-making, exploring ways to counteract feed-in management actions by increasing local industrial consumption during renewable generation peaks. The research proposes to guide production management decisions, synchronizing a company's energy consumption profile with renewable energy availability for more environmentally friendly production and improved grid stability

Development of a power monitoring and control system to provide demand side management of electric vehicle charging activity.

Due to the recent inflow of Electric Vehicles (EVs) to the automobile market, new concerns have risen with respect to the additional electrical load and the resultant effects on an overloaded electric grid. Either for convenience purposes or possibly necessity due to limited electric range on EVs, some EV owners may desire to charge their EV while at work in addition to charging at home. These forward-thinking daytime charging providers are typically Commercial and Industrial (C&I) electric ratepayers, or other large electric consumers which constitute the majority of businesses, shopping centers, academic campuses and manufacturing facilities. Increased electricity consumption due to EV charging activity results in higher electricity costs due to differences in the billing structures between residential and C&I electric ratepayers. Therefore, it is beneficial to the EVSE charging provider to minimize charging activity around peak demand periods which would result in lower electrical costs overall. A solution is developed that can provide this control without creating a nuisance to electric vehicle owners since EV charging demand is somewhat inelastic due to range anxiety. The primary objective of the research detailed in this dissertation is to develop a novel demand side management system for monitoring the peak demand of commercial time-of-day electric ratepayers that cost effectively predicts and controls electric vehicle charging during peak demand periods. This objective is achieved, therefore confirming the hypothesis that such a system can provide cost and demand benefits to forward-thinking commercial electric ratepayers that provide daytime charging capabilities. This work proposes and evaluates a novel Power Monitoring and Control System (PMCS) that can be implemented at C&I EV charging locations to minimize or eliminate the negative impacts of charging electric vehicles at the workplace in C&I environments. Operation of the PMCS begins by forecasting electrical demand in advance of every 15 minute demand interval throughout the day. The forecast is generated using an artificial neural network and a number of input data streams. Electrical demand has been shown to correlate well with weather data such as temperature and dew point. Therefore, using those measurements along with a date and time stamp, and historical electrical demand measurements, a highly accurate forecast for the following 15-minute demand interval was achieved. From that forecast, the number of EV charging stations that may be active, without the chance of creating new electrical demand peaks, is calculated. Finally, the forecast is then used to properly schedule EV charging activity so that electrical demand peaks can be avoided but charging activity is maximized. The avoidance of charging activity at or near peaks in electrical demand results in lower total electric costs associated with the charging process. The final design was implemented in an EV charging testbed at the University of Louisville and data was collected to verify the operation and performance of the PMCS. With a properly designed scheduling and prioritization control algorithm, increases in electrical demand and associated costs are limited to the error in the forecasting algorithm used for predicting electrical demand levels. The final design of the forecasting algorithm results in a mean absolute percent error of 0.02% to 0.08% in the electrical demand forecast. This corresponds to approximately 3 to 10 kVA of error in electrical demand. Taking this error into account, total cost of charging several EVs is reduced by nearly 90%. Furthermore, for scenarios where there are several more electric vehicles requiring charge than there are charging stations available, several scheduling algorithms are presented in an attempt to minimize the total processing time required for completing all charging transactions

Patterns of Scalable Bayesian Inference

Datasets are growing not just in size but in complexity, creating a demand for rich models and quantification of uncertainty. Bayesian methods are an excellent fit for this demand, but scaling Bayesian inference is a challenge. In response to this challenge, there has been considerable recent work based on varying assumptions about model structure, underlying computational resources, and the importance of asymptotic correctness. As a result, there is a zoo of ideas with few clear overarching principles. In this paper, we seek to identify unifying principles, patterns, and intuitions for scaling Bayesian inference. We review existing work on utilizing modern computing resources with both MCMC and variational approximation techniques. From this taxonomy of ideas, we characterize the general principles that have proven successful for designing scalable inference procedures and comment on the path forward

Study Of Stochastic Market Clearing Problems In Power Systems With High Renewable Integration

Integrating large-scale renewable energy resources into the power grid poses several operational and economic problems due to their inherently stochastic nature. The lack of predictability of renewable outputs deteriorates the power grid’s reliability. The power system operators have recognized this need to account for uncertainty in making operational decisions and forming electricity pricing. In this regard, this dissertation studies three aspects that aid large-scale renewable integration into power systems. 1. We develop a nonparametric change point-based statistical model to generate scenarios that accurately capture the renewable generation stochastic processes; 2. We design new pricing mechanisms derived from alternative stochastic programming formulations of the electricity market clearing problem under uncertainty; 3. We devise a novel approach to coordinate strategic operations of multiple noncooperative system operators. The current industry practices are based on deterministic models that do not account for the stochasticity of renewable energy. Therefore, the solutions obtained from these deterministic models will not provide accurate measurements. Stochastic programming (SP) can accommodate the stochasticity of renewable energy by considering a set of possible scenarios. However, the reliability of the SP model solution depends on the accuracy of the scenarios. We develop a nonparametric statistical simulation method to develop scenarios for wind generation using wind speed data. In this method, we address the nonstationarity issues that come with wind-speed time-series data using a nonparametric change point detection method. Using this approach, we retain the covariance structure of the original wind-speed time series in all the simulated series. With an accurate set of scenarios, we develop alternative two-stage SP models for the two-settlement electricity market clearing problem using different representations of the non-anticipativity constraints. Different forms of non-anticipativity constraints reveal different hidden dual information inside the canonical two-stage SP model, which we use to develop new pricing mechanisms. The new pricing mechanisms preserve properties of previously proposed pricing mechanisms, such as revenue adequacy in expectation and cost recovery in expectation. More importantly, our pricing mechanisms can guarantee cost recovery for every scenario. Furthermore, we develop bounds for the price distortion under every scenario instead of the expected distortion bounds. We demonstrate the differences in prices obtained from the alternative mechanisms through numerical experiments. Finally, we discuss the importance of distributed smart grid operations inside the power grid. We develop an information and electricity exchange system among multiple distribution systems. These distribution systems participate/compete in common markets cohere electricity is exchanged. We develop a standard Nash game treating each distribution system (DS) as an individual player who optimizes their strategies separately. We develop proximal best response (BR) schemes to solve this problem. We present results from numerical experiments conducted on three and six DS settings

PRICING AND INVESTMENT STRATEGY FOR DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN A SUPPLY CHAIN

This study addresses the problem of the pricing and investment strategy for smart technology under a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer. The models are constructed to investigate the strategic choices of supply chain members for investing in digital/smart technology under three scenarios: the M–system, wherein only the manufacturer fully pays for the investment cost; the S–system, wherein the manufacturer and retailer share the investment cost; and the R–system, wherein the retailer fully pays for the investment cost. We formulate analytical models to determine the optimal wholesale price, retail price and investment strategy in a Stackelberg game setting. Our findings show that the S–system is the most appropriate choice for both the manufacturer and retailer. We also suggest the appropriate investment sharing ratio to achieve Pareto improvement under such an arrangement