Transportation and storage problems for regional power coal allocation planning of China

With the reformation of China´s electric power and power coal system, several difficulties emerge in planning annual coal purchase and allocation schedule, e.g., with multiple sources, multiple destinations, different shipping vessels. So it is important to research on the transportation and storage problems for regional power coal allocation planning of China. In this study, these concerns are formulated as transportation and storage problems to realize the minimization of the regional transportation and storage cost. Furthermore, an effective optimization model is proposed to solve transportation and storage problems for regional power coal allocation planning integrating storage capacities of the different kinds of enterprises in the supply chain, which considers interactive effect on multiple participants, such as regional power plants, coal transportation companies, logistics centers, coal storage centers. A case study illustrates that the model and algorithm are reasonable compared with the classic transportation model, and the sensitivity analysis improves transportation and storage strategies for regional power coal allocation planning. Results obtained in this study clearly demonstrate that this model can not only satisfy more of the actual requirements of the integral system but also offer more information to the decision makers (DMs) for reference in favor of exalting decision making quality.