PLANNING OF FUEL COAL IMPORTS USING A MIXED-INTEGER PROGRAMMING METHOD

In the public utility and commercial fuel industries, commodities from multiple supply sources are sometimes blended before use to reduce co sts and assure quality. A. typical example of these commodities is the fuel coal used in coal fired power plants. The diversity of the suppl y sources for these plants makes the planning and scheduling of fuel c oal logistics difficult, especially for a power company that has more than one power plant. This study proposes a mixed integer programming model that provides planning and scheduling of coal imports from multi ple suppliers for the Taiwan Power Company. The objective is to minimi ze total inventory cost by minimizing procurement cost, transportation cost and holding cost. Constraints on the system include company proc urement policy, power plant demand, harbor unloading capacity, invento ry balance equations, blending requirement, and safety stock. An examp le problem is presented using the central coal logistics system of the Taiwan Power Company to demonstrate the validity of the proposed mode l.