Optimal Industrial Load Control in Smart Grid

In this paper, we investigate optimal load control in industrial sector, which involves several new and distinct research problems. For example, while most residential appliances operate independently, industrial units are highly interdependent and must follow certain operational sequences. Also, unlike residential appliances, the operation of industrial units may span across multiple days and involve multiple batch cycles. Furthermore, in industries with process control, energy management is often coupled with material flow management. The design in this paper is comprehensive and addresses industrial load control under various smart electricity pricing scenarios, including day-ahead pricing, time-of-use pricing, peak pricing (PP), inclining block rates, and critical PP. The use of behind-the-meter renewable generator and energy storage is also considered. The formulated optimization problem is a tractable mixed-integer linear program. Different case studies are presented based on a practical energy-extensive steel mill industry model.