Dear Colleagues,

To reduce the load on the global environment and realize a sustainable society, the spread of renewable energy is expanding worldwide. Not only are there systems that convert renewable energy into electric power and use it, but also systems that use it as thermal energy. It is important to design the system, including energy-using equipment, to promote the further spread of renewable energy. For example, to expand the use of electric power by renewables, it is necessary to accelerate electrification, such as electric vehicles and electric cookers. It is also necessary to promote solar heat utilizing equipment such as solar cookers and solar water heaters. It is expected that the equipment on the energy demand side will change significantly in the future.

For further use of renewable energy, there are many issues such as the high equipment cost of renewable energy utilization equipment itself, low degree of freedom in energy usage time due to periodic/aperiodic fluctuations in the energy sources, and the additional cost for the energy storage to match the supply and demand.

In addition to the conventional purposes such as energy-saving, to solve recent or future problems of renewable energy, system analyses of energy systems of various scales have been carried out. Many studies have also been conducted on the optimal equipment planning methods and operation methods. Mathematical programming, which is often used for these, is one of the most powerful tools in the field of energy systems engineering. Mathematical programming methods related to energy systems often complicate problems such as dealing with integer or binary variables that reflect the ON/OFF status of equipment and non-linear elements of equipment performance. Meanwhile, in addition to devising better modeling and improving the performance of the computer itself, the optimization solvers of the mathematical programming method have been improved, and even for complicated problems, solutions can be found in a realistic time. Therefore, research using mathematical optimization methods is being actively conducted.

This Special Issue focuses on energy system analysis, energy system design, equipment planning, system operation scheduling, and energy management using “Mathematical Programming/Optimization”. It targets energy systems of various scales: a house, an apartment, a factory, an office building, a public facility, and regional systems such as combined heat and power, one electric power system, multiple power systems connected by power network, and the supply chain of conventional fossil fuels and hydrogen across countries, etc.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Takashi Ikegami
Guest Editor

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• energy system modeling
• energy system design
• system planning
• operation scheduling
• energy management
• power system
• power network
• process system
• photovoltaics
• wind power
• biomass
• gas engine
• fuel cell
• hydrogen
• cogeneration
• combined heat and power
• energy storage
• battery
• electric vehicle
• thermal storage
• distributed generator
• heat pump
• air-conditioner
• water heater
• mathematical programming
• optimization
• control simulation
• robust modeling