Developing a Strategy for Renewable Energy System in Process Industry with a Focus on Employing Energy Storage Systems

Energy plays an important role in process industry. Energy is an essential utility resource of which impact is bigger than any other. Process industries are also heavily dependent on reliable and sufficient energy supply. It is important to supply enough amount of energy in a cheap way. Managing the energy system in process industry is a challenge from both of supply and demand perspective. In terms of supply, the introduction of renewable energy sources that is subject to variation makes the control of supply difficult. The increasing pressure to employ clean and sustainable energy sources enforces the introduction of renewable energies. At the same time, the varying demand cannot be underestimated caused by the frequent change in operation schedule. The fluctuating energy price makes the problem of energy supply, energy demand and their integration even further complicated. Recently attention has been given to energy storage system that is expected to be an affordable tool in mitigating the difficulties of the energy system. Many kinds of energy storage systems are under development such as capacitor, flying wheel, etc. It is expected that the deployment of ESS have a positive impact on the energy system. ESS allows us to use the redundant power that would have been wasted by storing them in the physical facility. Peak energy loads can thus be flattened. The amount of energy generation can be reduced. In terms of cost, the cheap energy generated at off peak can be used at the peak time. Individual energy storing performances will be improved due to the active R&D. The existing energy supply and demand network should be re-designed by incorporating the presence of ESS in the network. There has been little reported in terms of transforming the expectation into practice by a systematic manner. In order to utilize the full potential of ESS, it should be managed in a systematical framework based on rigorous decision-making tools. This paper proposes a mathematical programming based operation strategy for employing energy storage systems in the renewable energy supply and demand networks. After mathematical modeling of ESS and its energy system is presented, numerical case studies are addressed with some remarks.