Multi-Period Inventory Models with Synchronized Stages of Bamboo Biomass Planning for Small Power Plant

Abstract

The use of renewable energy sources is becoming the Thailand government’s mainstream policy. Energy production from biomass is one of the efficient choices in the policy framework due to the agricultural geography advantage and its high-energy outputs to replace the conventional fossil fuel energy sources. However, some problems in this industry have been found such as raw material shortage in some periods, moisture content, or price fluctuation. This paper is focused on inventory management dealing with a moisture content affected by seasonal variation, so the multi-period inventory models with synchronized stages are proposed. This consists of two sub models: 1) the periodic production lot-size model at the pre-drying stage providing the biomass feedstock for gasification and 2) the periodic EOQ (the economic order quantity model) for raw material management which is related to support the demand from the gasification drying stage. Nevertheless, the scope of the study is focused on the small local biomass power plant with capacity up to 3 MWh (megawatt-hour), and the raw material, bamboo-biomass, is considered for the study. The test problem shows the results of the inventory management and the character of synchronized stages inventory movement including the total economic cost.