Optimal design of eco-industrial parks for ressources and energies management – GREENSCOPE

By providing design tools through mathematical optimization, this project aims to develop a multi-objective modeling and optimization procedure for the design of sustainable eco-industrial parks, taking into account the identified obstacles to their development. A model based on a superstructure was formalized, formulated, and solved. Following optimization, the exchanges are represented by: steam (different pressure levels), electricity (from renewable energies or the grid), and water. It can be used for the initial design of an eco-park but also for the redesign (or remodeling) of an existing network. The Multi-Objective Linear Problem Formulation (MILP) allows for the handling of complex case studies. To validate this formulation, a case study including 15 industries was selected to test and validate the developed methods. To ensure that networks designed according to nominal operating conditions foreseen at the design phase can remain sustainable throughout the network lifetime, a design procedure is developed to design flexible networks, capable of coping with disturbances. In conclusion, a global multiobjective optimization procedure is proposed to synthesize all the development axes studied during this project.

The GREENSCOPE project has developed an original, robust, systemic, and comprehensive method to help and assist in the design of ecoparks. Compared to other existing tools, a detailed modeling of each company's processes is carried out in order to increase the possibilities of inter-company exchanges. The mathematical model, also based on the concepts of game theory, allows for the design of both exchanges within each industry and inter-company exchanges. In a validated case study, the methodology allows each company to save 15% of their costs (investment and operation) and 18% of the environmental footprint of an industrial zone (reduction in resource consumption and reduction of the GWP - Global Warming Potential). The advances of the GREENSCOPE project have made it possible to develop an innovative model for managing industrial symbioses. As such, the LGC was asked to draft a targeted project within the framework of the PEPR SPLEEN (Decarbonization of Industry). The project leader, Marianne Boix, was thus able to submit a targeted project (“ACT-4-IE”) for an amount of €1.44 million to pursue the objectives of GREENSCOPE.

Future work will need to take into account the behavior of stakeholders in the park and its integration into the territory (social, environmental, and political impacts). Through collaborative approaches in particular, it will be a question of promoting the social and societal acceptability of sustainable industrial development projects.

Boix, M.; Negny, S.; Montastruc, L.; Mousqué, F. Flexible networks to promote the development of industrial symbioses: a new optimization procedure. Computers and Chemical Engineering. 2023, 169, 108082.

Salas, D.; Cao Van, K.; Aussel, D.; Montastruc, L. Optimal design of exchange networks with blind inputs and its application to Eco-industrial parks. Computers and Chemical Engineering. 2020, 143, 107053.

Mousqué, F.; Boix, M.; Montastruc, L.; Domenech, S.; Negny, S. Optimal Design of Eco-Industrial Parks with coupled energy networks addressing Complexity bottleneck through an Interdependence analysis. Computers and Chemical Engineering. 2020, 138, 106859.

Mousqué, F.; Boix, M.; Négny, S.; Montastruc, L.; Domenech, S. On-grid Hybrid Power System and Utility Network planning to supply an Eco-Industrial Park with dynamic data. Computer Aided Chemical Engineering. 2019, 46, 1717-1722.

The last French political directives deeply encourage the development of research projects that aim at answering new environmental and economic problems. Both the economic crisis (increase of unemployment, reduction of industrial competitiveness) which strikes numerous industrialized countries and the current environmental context (impoverishment of natural resources, increasing environmental impacts) make that it becomes urgent to imagine innovative solutions to stimulate industrial growth in a context of sustainable development. Developments of a new industrial organization, their surrounding territory and of their integration in this territory turn out to be fundamental to attain this goal. One of the available solutions relies on the implementation of the concepts of industrial and territorial ecology. In particular, it allows answering to the challenge of the ecological transition by a systematic optimization approach. The interoperability (flow of exchanges of water, energy or waste) of several actors of the same territory (industries, administrations, and municipality) is optimized so that environmental burdens are decreased while the benefits are increased.
GREENSCOPE project aims at developing a modelling and multiobjective optimization methodology to design industrial ecosystems based on the mathematical concepts of game theory. The objective is to propose solutions that take into account the notion of risk, flexibility and the competitiveness of companies through the notion of Nash equilibrium. This will allow to stimulate industries of a territory while reducing the environmental impacts and the consumption of the resources on this one.
The developed approaches will support systems based on circular economy which stands out as a necessity today. The purpose is to develop and to implement tools allowing insuring the profitability of these systems as well as their sustainability. New collaborations must be developed within the same territories to improve the circularity of materials (water, raw materials) and energies (renewable or not). This project also widens the notion of eco-industrial system, limited until then to the only industries included in the park, and widens it to the surrounding natural and societal environment. The ecopark is not seen here as a system isolated but rather as a system totally integrated in its environment following a symbiotic relationship.
The design of eco-industrial parks is linked on one hand to notions of networks and to problems of optimization to reach an optimal interoperability. Furthermore, the case of optimization of the eco-industrial parks is very particular because it brings in numerous actors, each working for their own objective (an economic criterion for each industry and an environmental criterion for the community considered globally). It is to mitigate these various obstacles that an innovative approach is developed in this project, thanks to the contribution of the mathematics and game theory, totally adapted to this kind of problem. It is also necessary to use relevant environmental indicators which take into account the integration of the park in a more global system. This approach aims at proposing innovative solutions that can enhance real exchanges between different actors while increasing gains of everyone.