Description: Energy is a resource that needs to be managed and decisions need to be made on production, storage, distribution and consumption of energy. Determining how much to produce, where and when, and assigning resources to needs in the most efficient way is a problem that has been addressed in several fields. There are available tools that can be used to formulate and solve this kind of problems. Using them in energy management problems requires starting with the basics of math programming techniques, addressing some standard production planning problems, and adapting the solutions to new particular situations of interest.
A first issue is revisiting the modelling concept. The model is a simplified and limited representation of our reality. Complex multi-level problems may need different models and models valid at the operational level (control) may not be useful at the tactical or strategic levels (scheduling and planning). Thus, when addressing energy planning problems, detailed physical models based on differential equations will be replaced by algebraic equations expressing the basic relations between lumped parameters.
Students attending the course will learn how to recognise and formulate production planning problems, and how to solve them using existing software. Since there are many powerful solvers now available, solving the problem may reduce to properly modelling it. The software GAMS will be introduced and students will use it to solve diverse planning cases during supervised hands-on sessions. The Excel Solver will be also used for illustrative and comparative purposes, and other solvers and modelling systems that are also available will be commented. The examples range from the classical transport problem to recent MILP models proposed for the optimization of energy supply chains, and they will allow discussing the choice of objective function, the representation of discrete decisions, using formulation tricks and checking the results.
The course is intended for those students that, having a general knowledge in mathematics, simulation and optimization, have a very limited experience in math programming and production management, and need to be introduced to these tools for energy systems planning and optimization.
Organizer: Professor Josep M. Guerrero, joz@et.aau.dk – Aalborg University and Assistant Professor Juan C. Vasquez, juq@et.aau.dk - Aalborg University
Lecturers: Moises Graells, Associate Professor, Technical University of Catalonia, Eleonora Riva Sanseverino, Associate Professor, University of Palermo, PhD student Lexuan Meng – Aalborg University, PhD student Chendan Li – Aalborg University and Professor Josep M. Guerrero – Aalborg University.
ECTS: 3
Time: 20 – 22 October, 2014
Place: Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstræde 101
Zip code: 9220
City: Aalborg
Number of seats: 20
Deadline: 29 September, 2014
- Teacher: Josep M. Guerrero
- Teacher: Juan C. Vasquez