Abstract
In energy-consuming processes, various kinds of primary energy are consumed and, at the same time, are converted into byproduct energy. A part of byproduct energy is utilized efficiently for supplying necessary energy to another processes. Then we have a complicated interrelationship between generation and consumption of energy.
This paper deals with an optimal planning for supplying several kinds of byproduct gas produced in steel works as fuel of the boilers in a joint electric power plant. The generation of the byproduct gas changes with time according to the production schedule in steel works. On the other hand, a constant gas supply is desirable for the boiler operation in the electric power plant. An optimization technique is applied to coordinate such requirements and to find the optimal sequence of gas supply of which the steel works must notify the joint electric power plant in advance.
In our earlier paper, a mixed-integer programming model has been used in order to formulate the complicated operational constraints, and a decomposition algorithm has been applied to solve the problem. However, it is found out from further investigation that the algorithm requires much computation time for several numerical results based on real operation data. In this paper, a heuristic approach, called iterative improvement method, is proposed to save computation time. By examining numerical results, it is observed that the proposed algorithm is efficient, requiring less computation time than the branch and bound method. Further, the algorithm is evaluated for the possibility of making the gas supply plan on line.
