Multi-Fuel Allocation for Power Generation Using Genetic Algorithms

The ever increasing growth of energy consumption has stimulated an energy crisis, not only in terms of energy demand, but also the impact of climate change from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Renewable energy sources (RES) have high potential toward sustainable development, with a wide variety of socioeconomic benefits, including diversification of energy supply and creation of domestic industry. This paper presents a solution to optimal multi-fuel allocation for the electric power generation planning problem via genetic algorithms (GA). The objective is to maximize the electric power energy output and minimize generation cost. This is a difficult problem because of its data variation and volatility. GA can provide an appropriate heuristic search method and return an actual or near optimal solution. This paper uses some heuristics during crossover and mutation for tuning the system to obtain a better candidate solution. An experimental result showed significantly improved results compared with other techniques. The results in this paper should be useful for connecting power generation with economic growth

Erweiterte Prozessbewertung von Biogasanlagen unter Berücksichtigung organoleptischer Parameter und Erfahrungswissen

Landwirtschaftliche Biogasanlagen leisten mit ca. 9.300 Anlagen und einem Anteil von 5,3% an der Stromerzeugung, einen Beitrag zur Erzeugung Erneuer-barer Energien in Deutschland. Die Optimierung dieser Anlagen fördert die nachhaltige Bereitstellung von Strom, Wärme und BioErdgas. Das Ergebnis dieser Forschungsarbeit ist die Entwicklung eines mehrmethodi-schen Bewertungsansatzes zur Beschreibung der Qualität der Eingangs-substrate als Teil einer ganzheitlichen Prozessoptimierung. Dies gelingt durch die kombinierte Nutzung klassischer Analysesätze, der Nutzung organolepti-scher Parameter – der humansensorischen Sinnenprüfung – und der Integration von prozess- und substratspezifischem Erfahrungswissen. Anhand von halbtechnischen Versuchen werden Korrelationen und Kausalitäten zwi-schen chemisch-physikalischen, biologischen, organoleptischen und erfahrungsbezogenen Parametern erforscht. Die Entwicklung einer Fallbasis mit Hilfe des Fallbasierten Schließens, einer Form Künstlicher Intelligenz, zeigt das Entwicklungs- und Integrationspotenzial der Automatisierung auf, insbesondere auch im Hinblick auf neue Ansätze z.B. Industrie 4.0. Erste Lösungen zur Bewältigung der identifizierten Herausforderungen der mehrmethodischen Prozessbewertung werden vorgestellt. Abschließend wird ein Ausblick auf den weiteren Forschungsbedarf gegeben und die Übertragbarkeit des mehrmethodischen Bewertungsansatzes auf andere Anwendungsfelder z.B. Bioabfallbehandlung, Kläranlagen angeregt.Agricultural biogas plants significantly contribute to the generation of renewable energies in Germany. Approx. 9,300 facilities account 5.3% of the total generated electricity in Germany. Optimization of these biogas plants will undoubtably promote the sustainable provision of electricity, heat and natural gas. This research study developed a multi-methodical assessment approach to de-scribe the quality of input substrates as part of a holistic process optimization. This is achieved by combination of conventional analysis, use of organoleptic parameters, integration of process- as well as substrate-specific experient ba-sed knowledge. Correlations and causalities between chemical-physical, biological, organoleptic and experiential parameters are explored. These inves-tigations based on semi-technical experiments. Using case-based reasoning, a form of artificial intelligence, demonstrates the potential for development and integration of automation. Solving approaches to overcome the challenges of multi-methodical process assessment are presented. Finally, an outlook on further research needs is given. Furthermore, the trans-ferability of the multi-methodical assessment approach to other fields of application like bio-waste treatment or sewage treatment plants, is incited

Real-Time Substrate Feed Optimization of Anaerobic Co-Digestion Plants

In anaerobic co-digestion plants a mix of organic materials is converted to biogas using the anaerobic digestion process. These organic materials, called substrates, can be crops, sludge, manure, organic wastes and many more. They are fed on a daily basis and significantly affect the biogas production process. In this thesis dynamic real-time optimization of the substrate feed for anaerobic co-digestion plants is developed. In dynamic real-time optimization a dynamic simulation model is used to predict the future performance of the controlled plant. Therefore, a complex simulation model for biogas plants is developed, which uses the famous Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1). With this model the future economics as well as stability can be calculated resulting in a multi-objective performance criterion. Using multi-objective nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) the model predictions are used to find the optimal substrate feed for the biogas plant. Therefore, NMPC solves an optimization problem over a moving horizon and applies the optimal substrate feed to the plant for a short while before recalculating the new optimal solution. The multi-objective optimization problem is solved using state-of-the-art methods such as SMS-EMOA and SMS-EGO. The performance of the proposed approach is validated in a detailed simulation studyAlgorithms and the Foundations of Software technolog

A modular genetic programming system

Genetic Programming (GP) is an evolutionary algorithm for the automatic discovery of symbolic expressions, e.g. computer programs or mathematical formulae, that encode solutions to a user-defined task. Recent advances in GP systems and computer performance made it possible to successfully apply this algorithm to real-world applications. This work offers three main contributions to the state-of-the art in GP systems: (I) The documentation of RGP, a state-of-the art GP software implemented as an extension package to the popular R environment for statistical computation and graphics. GP and RPG are introduced both formally and with a series of tutorial examples. As R itself, RGP is available under an open source license. (II) A comprehensive empirical analysis of modern GP heuristics based on the methodology of Sequential Parameter Optimization. The effects and interactions of the most important GP algorithm parameters are analyzed and recommendations for good parameter settings are given. (III) Two extensive case studies based on real-world industrial applications. The first application involves process control models in steel production, while the second is about meta-model-based optimization of cyclone dust separators. A comparison with traditional and modern regression methods reveals that GP offers equal or superior performance in both applications, with the additional benefit of understandable and easy to deploy models. Main motivation of this work is the advancement of GP in real-world application areas. The focus lies on a subset of application areas that are known to be practical for GP, first of all symbolic regression and classification. It has been written with practitioners from academia and industry in mind