A biobjective chance constrained optimization model to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of biopower supply chains

• Published in: Annals of operations research 2021-01, Vol.296 (1-2), p.95-130
• Main Authors: Karimi, Hadi, Ekşioğlu, Sandra D., Carbajales-Dale, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Approximation; Biomass; Biomass burning; Biomass energy; Biomass energy production; Business and Management; Coal-fired power plants; Combinatorics; Computing time; Constraint modelling; Cutting; Economic analysis; Economic aspects; Economic models; Emission analysis; Environmental impact; Evaluation; Heuristic methods; Hierarchies; Industrial plant emissions; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Logistics; Mathematical optimization; Operations research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Optimization models; Pareto optimum; S.i.: Mopgp 2017; Supply chains; Theory of Computation
• ISSN: 0254-5330; 1572-9338
• DOI: 10.1007/s10479-019-03331-x

Generating electricity by co-combusting biomass and coal, known as biomass cofiring, is shown to be an economically attractive option for coal-fired power plants to comply with emission regulations. However, the total carbon footprint of the associated supply chain still needs to be carefully investigated. In this study we propose a stochastic biobjective optimization model to analyze the economic and environmental impacts of biopower supply chains. We use a life cycle assessment approach to derive the emission factors used in the environmental objective function. We use chance constraints to capture the uncertain nature of energy content of biomass feedstocks. We propose a cutting plane algorithm which uses the sample average approximation method to model the chance constraints and finds high confidence feasible solutions. In order to find Pareto optimal solutions we propose a heuristic approach which integrates the ϵ -constraint method with the cutting plane algorithm. We show that the developed approach provides a set of local Pareto optimal solutions with high confidence and reasonable computational time. We develop a case study using data about biomass and coal plants in North and South Carolina. The results indicate that, cofiring of biomass in these states can reduce emissions by up to 8%. Increasing the amount of biomass cofired will not result in lower emissions due to biomass delivery.