The Good, the Bad, and Your Real Choices : Decision Support for Energy Systems Synthesis through Near-Optimal Solutions Analysis

Abstract An optimisation-based decision support methodology is proposed for the synthesis of energy supply systems. Given that mathematical models never perfectly represent the real world and that decision makers are often not aware of all practical constraints, the mathematically optimal solution is usually only an approximation of the real-world optimum. Therefore, in this paper, a synthesis approach is proposed that supports the decision maker through the generation of a set of near-optimal solution alternatives, which can be evaluated in more detail a posteriori. We study two very different synthesis problems at the district and the industrial scale. In both test cases, rich near- optimal solution spaces are identified that exhibit practically identical objective function values. Considering the many uncertainties and constraints arising in practice, a ranking of the generated solutions based on a single objective function value is not significant. Instead, the near-optimal solutions are analysed to support the synthesis process by extracting common features and differences. The obtained information provides deeper understanding of the synthesis problem enabling engineers to reach more rational synthesis decisions.