Data-driven adaptive robust optimization for energy systems in ethylene plant under demand uncertainty

The operational optimization of energy systems is of great significance for improving the overall efficiency of industrial processes. Facing new challenges brought by widespread uncertainties, a data-driven adaptive robust industrial multi-type energy systems optimization framework was proposed by bridging robust optimization and machine learning methods in this paper. The industrial data were used to capture the demand uncertainty of the actual process. Hybrid models of units were first developed considering the operational characteristics, and the energy system optimization model was then formed as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. The uncertain parameter set of process power demands was formed by the process models using historical data of a whole operating period. Afterward, the uncertainty set was constructed by applying the robust kernel density estimation method, which can reduce conservatism by considering the distributional information. By integrating the derived data-driven uncertainty set, a two-stage adaptive robust optimization model aiming at minimizing the weighted total energy consumption was developed. The multi-level robust optimization model was reformulated as a tractable single-level model by employing the affine decision rule. A case study on a plant-wide industrial energy system in the ethylene plant was performed, and the minimum optimal energy consumption was 25,350 kg/h, whose price of robustness was only 2.18%. The robust optimization results can guide the operational optimization of energy systems under uncertainty for the operators of the ethylene plant.