Reliable biomass supply chain design under feedstock seasonality and probabilistic facility disruptions

Zhixue Liu, Shukun Wang, Yanfeng Ouyang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1895
JournalEnergies
Volume10
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2017

Keywords

  • Biomass
  • Disruption risk
  • Facility location
  • Inventory
  • Seasonality
  • Supply chain

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Optimization
  • Energy (miscellaneous)
  • Engineering (miscellaneous)
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering
  • Fuel Technology
  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

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