Optimal operation and offering strategy for profit-seeking of a coal-mine energy prosumer in a liberalised market

Abstract

Coal mines consume electricity from grids while making use of various derived energy resources to generate heat and power. This allows coal mines to act as energy prosumers. This paper presents an integrated optimisation model of optimal operation and offers strategies for profit-seeking of a coal-mine energy prosumer in a liberalised market. The discussed problem is formulated as a tri-stage bi-level programming model. In the upper level, the coal mine-integrated energy system (CMIES) operator decides the retail contract management, equipment operation plan, and retail electricity price offered to end-users through three stages to maximise its expected profits at a predefined risk level. In the lower level, the end-users react to the price bids offered by the CMIES operator under study and other market retailers to minimise their costs for energy procurement. Unlike previous approaches, the endogenous uncertainties associated with market subjects' strategic behaviours are explicitly considered. To solve the proposed problem efficiently, the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions and multicut benders decomposition method are employed. The simulation results show that the collaborative optimisation of the energy cycle and production scheduling can reduce daily operating costs by nearly $3576 and carbon emissions by 6.72 tons, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method.