Environmental life cycle impact and cost minimization in the steam and power generation plant

The selection of the operating conditions of the steam and power generation sector of an ethylene plant is carried out minimizing the environmental life cycle impact and operating cost solving a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming problem. The battery limits of the utility plant are extended to include the main environmental impacts corresponding to the electricity imported generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and thermoelectric plants. When the environmental life cycle impact and operating cost are minimized the optimal solutions are similar, while if the environmental impact is evaluated inside the utility sector battery limits, a different solution is found mainly associated to a different selection of drivers.