(23b) Decision-Making Tool for the Optimal Planning and Scheduling of Utility Assets
AIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process Safety
2017
2017 Spring Meeting and 13th Global Congress on Process Safety
Computing and Systems Technology Division
Computers in Design and Operations: Energy Applications I
Monday, March 27, 2017 - 2:00pm to 2:30pm
With this in mind, in this paper we introduce our Energy Multi-Period Optimizer technology [1], an energy management software (VM-EMPO) for optimal planning and scheduling of utilities assets. VM-EMPO allows scheduling engineers and operators to find the optimal operation of the utility plants on a time horizon when dealing with time dependent constraints. These constraints are often related to fuel tank farms, thermal energy storages, minimum/maximum start/stop time of equipment, and planned out-of-service periods. VM-EMPO offers a robust modeling and optimization engine and an easy-to-use graphical user interface.
We illustrate the benefits of using VM-EMPO in two energy management applications. Namely, the optimal operation of a thermal energy storage and chillers in a district cooling system and the optimal fuel storage management and cogeneration unit operation in the steam system of a petrochemical plant.
[1] Ruiz, J. P., Santollani, O., Optimal Planning and Scheduling of Utility Assets, Industrial Energy Technology Conference (IETC) Proceedings (2016).