Reducing energy costs and CO2 emissions by production system energy flexibility through the integration of renewable energy

In recent years, the production of renewable energy has increased continuously to reduce fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and to increase energy efficiency. The challenge of industries is to integrate renewable energy systems into the existing power system of manufacturing industries. In the energy flexibility approach, the manufacturing energy demand is aligned with renewable energy availability, to improve the use of the renewable energy source. This paper aims to investigate a manufacturing system supplied by a photovoltaic plant coupled with a battery storage system. A basic storage model has been developed and implemented to pursue this issue. The model is applied in the simplified case of a manufacturing system composed of a cutting numerical control machine, which can adapt the cutting speed to align the power needed to the power supplied by the photovoltaic plant. However, the model can be extended to realistic production cases characterized by complex systems as long as the time evolution of energy consumptions are known in detail. The introduction of battery storage allows reducing the cutting speed fluctuations, improving the cutting life derived from the fatigue effect. This solution reduces the costs of the machine and improves the forecasting of the means needed for the manufacturing system. Finally, a detailed analysis of greenhouse gas reduction is discussed.