LAPSE:2019.0360
Published Article
LAPSE:2019.0360
On the Reliability of Optimization Results for Trigeneration Systems in Buildings, in the Presence of Price Uncertainties and Erroneous Load Estimation
Antonio Piacentino, Roberto Gallea, Pietro Catrini, Fabio Cardona, Domenico Panno
February 27, 2019
Cogeneration and trigeneration plants are widely recognized as promising technologies for increasing energy efficiency in buildings. However, their overall potential is scarcely exploited, due to the difficulties in achieving economic viability and the risk of investment related to uncertainties in future energy loads and prices. Several stochastic optimization models have been proposed in the literature to account for uncertainties, but these instruments share in a common reliance on user-defined probability functions for each stochastic parameter. Being such functions hard to predict, in this paper an analysis of the influence of erroneous estimation of the uncertain energy loads and prices on the optimal plant design and operation is proposed. With reference to a hotel building, a number of realistic scenarios is developed, exploring all the most frequent errors occurring in the estimation of energy loads and prices. Then, profit-oriented optimizations are performed for the examined scenarios, by means of a deterministic mixed integer linear programming algorithm. From a comparison between the achieved results, it emerges that: (i) the plant profitability is prevalently influenced by the average “spark-spread” (i.e., ratio between electricity and fuel price) and, secondarily, from the shape of the daily price profiles; (ii) the “optimal sizes” of the main components are scarcely influenced by the daily load profiles, while they are more strictly related with the average “power to heat” and “power to cooling” ratios of the building.
Keywords
buildings, cogeneration, energy loads, linear programming, Optimization, prices, sensitivity, stochastic, trigeneration, uncertainty
Suggested Citation
Piacentino A, Gallea R, Catrini P, Cardona F, Panno D. On the Reliability of Optimization Results for Trigeneration Systems in Buildings, in the Presence of Price Uncertainties and Erroneous Load Estimation. (2019). LAPSE:2019.0360
Author Affiliations
Piacentino A: Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Gallea R: Sistema Informativo di Ateneo, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Catrini P: Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Cardona F: Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Panno D: Department of Energy, Information Engineering and Mathematical Models, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy
[Login] to see author email addresses.
Journal Name
Energies
Volume
9
Issue
12
Article Number
E1049
Year
2016
Publication Date
2016-12-13
Published Version
ISSN
1996-1073
Version Comments
Original Submission
Other Meta
PII: en9121049, Publication Type: Journal Article
Record Map
Published Article

LAPSE:2019.0360
This Record
External Link

doi:10.3390/en9121049
Publisher Version
Download
Files
Feb 27, 2019
Main Article
License
CC BY 4.0
Meta
Record Statistics
Record Views
590
Version History
[v1] (Original Submission)
Feb 27, 2019
 
Verified by curator on
Feb 27, 2019
This Version Number
v1
Citations
Most Recent
This Version
URL Here
https://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2019.0360
 
Original Submitter
Calvin Tsay
Links to Related Works
Directly Related to This Work
Publisher Version