Abstract
While biomass has been recognized as an important renewable energy source which has a range of positive impacts on the economy, environment, and society, the existence of feedstock seasonality and risk of service disruptions at collection facilities potentially compromises the efficiency and reliability of the energy supply system. In this paper, we consider reliable supply chain design for biomass collection against feedstock seasonality and time-varying disruption risks. We optimize facility location, inventory, biomass quantity, and shipment decisions in a multi-period planning horizon setting. A real-world case in Hubei, China is studied to offer managerial insights. Our computational results show that: (1) the disruption risk significantly affects both the optimal facility locations and the supply chain cost; (2) no matter how the failure probability changes, setting backup facilities can significantly decrease the total cost; and (3) the feedstock seasonality does not affect locations of the collection facilities, but it affects the allocations of collection facilities and brings higher inventory cost for the biomass supply chain.
Highlights
To ensure future energy security and sustainability, renewable energy has attracted considerable attention from researchers in both academia and industry
We explore the relationship between biomass supply chain decisions and uncertainties
We find that: (1) the disruption risk of collection facilities affects both optimal facility deployment and the supply chain cost; (2) it is worth investing more collection facilities to mitigate the negative impact of disruption risk and the optimal locations tend to be at places with high biomass supply; (3) the feedstock seasonality will not directly affect locations of the collection facilities, but it will affect the allocation of collection facilities and bring higher inventory cost for the biomass supply chain
Summary
To ensure future energy security and sustainability, renewable energy has attracted considerable attention from researchers in both academia and industry. We aim at designing a reliable supply chain for biomass against seasonal variation of feedstock and the probabilistic disruptions of the collection facility. The objective function is to minimize the total cost of the biomass supply chain, including transportation cost, fixed facility cost, and inventory holding cost Both disruption risks and seasonality issues are captured by a set of chance-constraints. We explore the relationship between biomass supply chain decisions (e.g., collection facility locations and inventories) and uncertainties (e.g., disruption risks and feedstock seasonality).
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