Energy-efficient flexible flow shop scheduling with renewable energy sources and energy storage systems

In France, the industrial sector is responsible for 18% of the total energy consumption in 2023, nevertheless, only 7% of it comes from renewable energy sources [1]. With the increasing concern over climate change and global warming, industries have started to integrate programs based on demand-side management which includes energy efficiency and demand response to reduce carbon emissions from their manufacturing process. The present work focuses on the integration of energy efficiency by considering the machine turn on/turn off strategy, and energy flexibility by taking into account the TOU pricing, the onsite solar power, and the energy storage system, while scheduling production operations in a flexible flow shop environment. Our objectives are twofold. On one front, we aim to enhance the energy flexibility of the production scheduling process, adopting a strategy that aligns with achieving a low-carbon economy by minimizing total electricity costs. On another front, our focus is on improving production efficiency through the minimization of makespan.