A graphical dual objective approach for minimizing energy consumption and carbon emission in production planning

Abstract

Carbon emission and energy consumption are two important factors need to be addressed while production planning for sustainable development. As the population is increasing and demand of various commodity is increasing rapidly therefore production planning is required which reduces the environmental effect, improves energy efficiency and also meet the forecasted demand. In this paper, two objectives carbon emission and energy consumption are taken in parallel consideration and methodology is proposed for production planning via existing and new process routes for minimizing one objective while imposing a maximum limit on the other objective. The proposed methodology is graphical and based on the concepts of pinch analysis that gives physical insight to the problem. Current production scenario utilizes existing process routes and to meet the future demand new process routes (based on best available techniques) are to be added. Production planning is to be calculated via each process route in order to minimize energy consumption and carbon emission. Proposed methodology is illustrated via two examples. First example consists of general production planning and the second example consists of production planning of crude steel. The planning is carried for two cases, in the first case carbon emission is constrained within a maximum limit and energy consumption is minimized while in the other case energy consumption is constrained within a maximum limit and carbon emission is minimized. Thus, proposed methodology provides flexibility to the planner to consider either of the two cases based on scenario and other requirements and it reduces the excess burden of carbon emission and energy consumption while satisfying the demand.