Michigan Technological University

About: Michigan Technological University is a education organization based out in Houghton, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Volcano. The organization has 8023 authors who have published 17422 publications receiving 481780 citations. The organization is also known as: MTU & Michigan Tech.

Optimal Operation of Industrial Energy Hubs in Smart Grids

Abstract: This paper presents the development of a generic optimal industrial load management (OILM) model, which can be readily incorporated into energy hub management systems (EHMSs) for industrial customers, in interaction with local distribution companies (LDCs), for automated and optimal scheduling of their processes. The mathematical models comprise an objective function to minimize the total energy costs and/or demand charges for industrial customers, and a set of equality and inequality constraints to represent the industrial process, storage units, distribution system components, operator's requirements, and other relevant constraints. The effectiveness of the proposed OILM model is demonstrated in two industrial customers: 1) a flour mill; and 2) a water pumping facility. The results show that the proposed OILM model, in conjunction with communication and control infrastructures at the customer and LDC levels, would allow optimal operation of industrial EHMSs in smart grids.

Return on investment for open source scientific hardware development

Abstract: The availability of free and open source hardware designs that can be replicated with low-cost 3-D printers provide large values to scientists that need highly-customized low-volume production scientific equipment. Digital manufacturing technologies have only recently become widespread and the return on investment (ROI) was not clear, so funding for open hardware development was historically sparse. This paper clarifies a method for determining an ROI for FOSH scientific hardware development. By using open source hardware design that can be manufactured digitally the relatively minor development costs result in enormous ROIs for the scientific community. A case study is presented of an syringe pump released under open-licenses, which results in ROIs for funders ranging from 100s to 1,000s of percent after only a few months. It is clear that policies encouraging free and open source scientific hardware development should be made by organizations interested in maximizing return on public investments for science.