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Natural sciences
- Operations research and mathematical programming
The production process in most industrial sectors requires, in addition to the availability of the necessary machines, raw materials and people, often also a significant amount of energy, in either electrical, thermal or chemical form, which must be available at the right time in the right place in the process . Wind turbines and solar panels are increasing in importance as sustainable sources, but their yield is highly variable and has limited predictability. Efficient storage is also limited and expensive. These aspects present the necessary energy transition that companies face as a complicated optimization issue: what investments are needed and what is their ROI? But the uncertainty and additional degrees of freedom in daily production planning are also a challenge at operational level. Careful planning of when and with which energy source production takes place can yield important benefits.
The project aims to develop mathematical decision and optimization models for planning under uncertainty of production systems, specifically taking into account energy flows, energy storage and energy costs.