Pattern-Based Set Partitioning Algorithm for the Integrated Sustainable Operation of a District Heating Network

Abstract

District heating is a system of distributing heated water from centralized facilities to local homes and buildings. In this paper, we model the distribution planning problem as a supply chain planning problem and propose an explicit column generation algorithm to handle large-scale data and nonlinear constraints. The algorithm is successfully applied to a Korean district heating company and computational experiments show that the integrated operation of the district heating network increases the total profit compared to previous isolated networks.