Design the Capacity of Onsite Generation System with Renewable Sources for Manufacturing Plant

The utilization of onsite generation system with renewable sources in manufacturing plants plays a critical role in improving the resilience, enhancing the sustainability, and bettering the cost effectiveness for manufacturers. When designing the capacity of onsite generation system, the manufacturing energy load needs to be met and the cost for building and operating such onsite system with renewable sources are two critical factors need to be carefully quantified. Due to the randomness of machine failures and the variation of local weather, it is challenging to determine the energy load and onsite generation supply at different time periods. In this paper, we first propose time series models to describe and predict the variation of the energy load of manufacturing system and the irradiation of solar energy. After that, a case study utilizing the predicted data is implemented. The case study includes different scenarios with respect to generation capacities, considering different predicted energy loads from manufacturing system. The cost for building and running such an onsite generation system and its corresponding service level are examined and discussed. (c) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.