Abstract
A revised method for robust optimal design based on the minimax regret criterion is proposed to determine equipment capacities of energy supply systems so that they are robust in economic and energy saving characteristics against the uncertainty in energy demands. Equipment capacities and utility contract demands as well as energy flow rates are determined to minimize the maximum regret in the annual total cost while satisfying all the possible energy demands. This optimization problem is formulated as a kind of multilevel linear programming problem, and its solution is obtained by repeatedly evaluating lower and upper bounds for the maximum regret in the annual total cost. Especially, a novel method for evaluating an upper bound is proposed by converting a bilevel linear programming problem into a bilinear programming one, and further a mixed-integer linear programming one. This method can reduce computation time because the number of binary variables decreases from that in a conventional method. A case study is conducted for robust optimal design of a cogeneration system, and the validity and effectiveness of the proposed method is ascertained.
