Optimal energy management in pulp and paper mills

In this paper, we examine the utilization of mathematical programming tools for optimum energy management of the power plant in pulp and paper mills. The-objective is the fulfillment of the total plant requirements in energy and steam with the minimum possible cost. The proposed methodology is based on the development of a detailed model of the power plant using mass and energy balances and a mathematical formulation of the electrical purchase contract, which can be translated into a rigorous mixed integer linear programming optimization problem. The results show that the method can be a very useful tool for the reduction of production cost due to minimization of the fuel and electricity costs. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.