Open Access

Ryohei Yokoyama, Yuji Shinano, Kotaro Takeuchi, Tetsuya Wakui

• Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) methods have been applied widely to optimal design of energy supply systems. A hierarchical MILP method has been proposed to solve such optimal design problems efficiently. In addition, some strategies have been proposed to enhance the computation efficiency furthermore. As one of the strategies, a method of reducing model by time aggregation has been proposed to search design candidates efficiently in the relaxed optimal design problem at the upper level. In this paper, three clustering methods are applied to time aggregation and compared with one another in terms of the computation efficiency. Especially, the k-medoids method is applied newly in addition to the time-series and operation-based methods applied previously. A case study is conducted on the optimal design of a gas turbine cogeneration system for district energy supply. Through the study, it turns out the k-medoids method is effective to shorten the computation time as compared with the time-series method, although it is necessary to set the number of clusters artifically in both the methods. It also turns out that the operation-based method is more effective than the k-medoids method in terms of the computation efficiency even with the number of clusters set automatically.