Multi-period production-inventory decision under integration of renewable energy sources

A growing number of manufacturing enterprises begin to leverage green quality as a new competitive-edge for market expansion, and increasingly integrate onsite wind and solar energy into their production facilities. However, few cost-benefit models are available to guide the manufacturers to operate the production system under intermittent power. This paper aims to fill this gap by optimizing the production quantity, the inventory level, and the renewable energy use in a multi-plant manufacturing system to achieve low-carbon environmental performance. Numerical experiments are carried out to verify and validate the proposed planning model at a moderate renewables penetration level.