Objective function for municipal heat supply systems’ structural optimization

Abstract

Modern heat supply systems in urban areas have the potential to heat supply cost reduction when using various alternative thermal energy sources. Availability of possible alternatives allows to select the source that generates a cheaper heat. At that arises the question of expressing such different sources’ characteristics as capital cost, reliability and efficiency in the consistent measurement units. This paper proposes an objective function representing all the factors affecting the thermal energy final cost in monetary units. It is shown that depending on external factors the range of prime cost for heat from various sources does vary considerably. Expected is that the proposed objective function application for managing the heat supply systems structure in urban areas will significantly reduce the operating costs.