Economic assessment of energy systems with simulation and linear programming

ABSTRACT

Energy systems based on some natural renewal sources have the drawback of a random input, making them a non reliable supplier of energy. The regulation of the produced energy requires the introduction of new equipment able to storage this energy. The advantage of these transformation-storage systems is that the energy can be sold when the demand is higher and then also the prices are higher. The disadvantages are two, the costs of the new equipments and the lost of energy because of inefficiencies in the transformation processes. Our purpose is to develop a simulation model useful to the economic assessment of this type of energy systems. We also consider the analysis of optimal management policies, which are obtained by solving linear programming problems.