IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v360y2024ics0306261924001764.html

Daily optimization of maintenance routing and scheduling in a large-scale photovoltaic power plant with time-varying output power

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Lujie
  • Xiao, Yiyong
  • Yang, Jun

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) power generation is an environmentally friendly and clean energy source with extensive and widespread installations worldwide. Consequently, the maintenance planning for PV power plants has become exceedingly significant. Owing to the time-varying output power of PV power plants, the optimization of daily maintenance planning for PV power plants should encompass not only the optimization of maintenance routes and task assignments, but also the consideration of reducing downtime costs resulting from failures and maintenance activities. To find the optimal route that minimizes the total cost, including travel, technician, downtime, and penalty costs, a PV power plant maintenance routing problem and its solution approach were investigated in this study. First, considering the influence of daily variations in solar radiation and temperature on output power, this study proposed an optimization problem for maintenance routing in a PV power plant. Next, linearization techniques with controllable error precision were developed to construct a mixed-integer linear programming model. Then, to efficiently solve large-scale problems, a heuristic algorithm was customized based on an adaptive large neighborhood search approach. Finally, the proposed approach was implemented at the Talatan PV power plant in Qinghai Province, China. Compared to the traditional shortest route model, which neglects the time-varying output power, the proposed method significantly reduces the total cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Lujie & Xiao, Yiyong & Yang, Jun, 2024. "Daily optimization of maintenance routing and scheduling in a large-scale photovoltaic power plant with time-varying output power," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 360(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:360:y:2024:i:c:s0306261924001764
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.122793
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924001764
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.122793?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xiao, Yiyong & Zhang, Yue & Kaku, Ikou & Kang, Rui & Pan, Xing, 2021. "Electric vehicle routing problem: A systematic review and a new comprehensive model with nonlinear energy recharging and consumption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. López-Santana, Eduyn & Akhavan-Tabatabaei, Raha & Dieulle, Laurence & Labadie, Nacima & Medaglia, Andrés L., 2016. "On the combined maintenance and routing optimization problem," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 199-214.
    3. Fontaine, Pirmin, 2022. "The vehicle routing problem with load-dependent travel times for cargo bicycles," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 300(3), pages 1005-1016.
    4. Al Garni, Hassan Z. & Awasthi, Anjali, 2017. "Solar PV power plant site selection using a GIS-AHP based approach with application in Saudi Arabia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 1225-1240.
    5. Wu, Yubo & Du, Jianqiang & Liu, Guangxin & Ma, Danzhu & Jia, Fengrui & Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír & Wang, Jin, 2022. "A review of self-cleaning technology to reduce dust and ice accumulation in photovoltaic power generation using superhydrophobic coating," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1034-1061.
    6. AlSkaif, Tarek & Dev, Soumyabrata & Visser, Lennard & Hossari, Murhaf & van Sark, Wilfried, 2020. "A systematic analysis of meteorological variables for PV output power estimation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 12-22.
    7. Yan, Rui & Zhu, Xiaoping & Zhu, Xiaoning & Peng, Rui, 2023. "Joint optimisation of task abortions and routes of truck-and-drone systems under random attacks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    8. Tsianikas, Stamatis & Zhou, Jian & Birnie, Dunbar P. & Coit, David W., 2019. "Economic trends and comparisons for optimizing grid-outage resilient photovoltaic and battery systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    9. Yan, Rui & Zhu, Xiaoping & Zhu, Xiaoning & Peng, Rui, 2022. "Optimal routes and aborting strategies of trucks and drones under random attacks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    10. Xia, Tangbin & Si, Guojin & Shi, Guo & Zhang, Kaigan & Xi, Lifeng, 2022. "Optimal selective maintenance scheduling for series–parallel systems based on energy efficiency optimization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    11. Irawan, Chandra Ade & Eskandarpour, Majid & Ouelhadj, Djamila & Jones, Dylan, 2021. "Simulation-based optimisation for stochastic maintenance routing in an offshore wind farm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(3), pages 912-926.
    12. Sommerfeldt, Nelson & Pearce, Joshua M., 2023. "Can grid-tied solar photovoltaics lead to residential heating electrification? A techno-economic case study in the midwestern U.S," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    13. Wang, Cong & Chen, Yunxia & Zhang, Qingyuan & Zhu, Jiaxiao, 2023. "Dynamic early recognition of abnormal lithium-ion batteries before capacity drops using self-adaptive quantum clustering," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    14. Kyere, Francis & Dongying, Sun & Bampoe, Gertrude Dotse & Kumah, Naana Yaa Gyamea & Asante, Dennis, 2024. "Decoding the shift: Assessing household energy transition and unravelling the reasons for resistance or adoption of solar photovoltaic," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Xia, Longyu & Wei, Gaosheng & Wang, Gang & Cui, Liu & Du, Xiaoze, 2023. "Research on combined solar fiber lighting and photovoltaic power generation system based on the spectral splitting technology," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    16. Peters, Lennart & Madlener, Reinhard, 2017. "Economic evaluation of maintenance strategies for ground-mounted solar photovoltaic plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 264-280.
    17. Li, Mingxin & Jiang, Xiaoli & Carroll, James & Negenborn, Rudy R., 2022. "A multi-objective maintenance strategy optimization framework for offshore wind farms considering uncertainty," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    18. Peinado Gonzalo, Alfredo & Pliego Marugán, Alberto & García Márquez, Fausto Pedro, 2020. "Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Jiang, Jie & Dai, Ying & Yang, Fei & Ma, Zujun, 2024. "A multi-visit flexible-docking vehicle routing problem with drones for simultaneous pickup and delivery services," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 312(1), pages 125-137.
    20. Zhu, Xiaoning & Yan, Rui & Peng, Rui & Zhang, Zhongxin, 2020. "Optimal routing, loading and aborting of UAVs executing both visiting tasks and transportation tasks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    21. Zhang, Peng & Li, Wenyuan & Li, Sherwin & Wang, Yang & Xiao, Weidong, 2013. "Reliability assessment of photovoltaic power systems: Review of current status and future perspectives," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 822-833.
    22. Gutierrez-Alcoba, A. & Hendrix, E.M.T. & Ortega, G. & Halvorsen-Weare, E.E. & Haugland, D., 2019. "On offshore wind farm maintenance scheduling for decision support on vessel fleet composition," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(1), pages 124-131.
    23. Yu, Shiwei & Han, Ruilian & Zhang, Junjie, 2023. "Reassessment of the potential for centralized and distributed photovoltaic power generation in China: On a prefecture-level city scale," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PA).
    24. An, Xiangxin & Si, Guojin & Xia, Tangbin & Wang, Dong & Pan, Ershun & Xi, Lifeng, 2023. "An energy-efficient collaborative strategy of maintenance planning and production scheduling for serial-parallel systems under time-of-use tariffs," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    25. Xie, Mingjiang & Zhao, Jianli & Zuo, Ming J. & Tian, Zhigang & Liu, Libin & Wu, Jinming, 2023. "Multi-objective maintenance decision-making of corroded parallel pipeline systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 351(C).
    26. Xiao, Yiyong & Konak, Abdullah, 2016. "The heterogeneous green vehicle routing and scheduling problem with time-varying traffic congestion," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 146-166.
    27. Lin, Boqiang & Xie, Yongjing, 2023. "The impact of government subsidies on capacity utilization in the Chinese renewable energy industry: Does technological innovation matter?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 352(C).
    28. Frey, Christian M.M. & Jungwirth, Alexander & Frey, Markus & Kolisch, Rainer, 2023. "The vehicle routing problem with time windows and flexible delivery locations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(3), pages 1142-1159.
    29. Mir Ehsan Hesam Sadati & Vahid Akbari & Bülent Çatay, 2022. "Electric vehicle routing problem with flexible deliveries," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(13), pages 4268-4294, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cui, Xinhao & Li, Bo & Wang, Shitao & Zhang, Siyue & Yang, Xue & Ren, Yi & Xiao, Yiyong, 2025. "Timeliness-oriented rush repair optimization of workforce scheduling and routing for logically complex systems under uncertainty," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Borsotti, M. & Negenborn, R.R. & Jiang, X., 2026. "A review of multi-horizon decision-making for operation and maintenance of fixed-bottom offshore wind farms," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 226(PE).
    2. Zhao, Xian & Wang, Xinlei & Dai, Ying & Qiu, Qingan, 2024. "Joint optimization of loading, mission abort and rescue site selection policies for UAV," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    3. Abdulla, Hind & Sleptchenko, Andrei & Nayfeh, Ammar, 2024. "Photovoltaic systems operation and maintenance: A review and future directions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    4. Zhang, Fengqi & Si, Guojin & Chen, Zhen & Zheng, Meimei & Xia, Tangbin & Xi, Lifeng, 2025. "A multi-faceted opportunistic-based maintenance optimization in offshore wind farms using long-term wind speed forecasting," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    5. Lee, Namkyoung & Lee, Hyuntae & Joung, Seulgi, 2025. "A wake-induced two-phase planning framework for offshore wind farm maintenance with stochastic mixed-integer program," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 380(C).
    6. Liu, Lujie & Yang, Jun & Yan, Bingxin, 2024. "A dynamic mission abort policy for transportation systems with stochastic dependence by deep reinforcement learning," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    7. Xie, Mingjiang & Zhao, Jianli & Zuo, Ming J. & Tian, Zhigang & Liu, Libin & Wu, Jinming, 2023. "Multi-objective maintenance decision-making of corroded parallel pipeline systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 351(C).
    8. Xiaodong Li & Xiang Song & Djamila Ouelhadj, 2023. "A Cost Optimisation Model for Maintenance Planning in Offshore Wind Farms with Wind Speed Dependent Failure Rates," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-21, June.
    9. Xie, Mingjiang & Li, Jie & Wei, Ziqi & Bai, Guanghan, 2026. "Multi-objective optimization for pipeline systems: A maintenance model using NSGA-II considering flow capacity and total cost," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 266(PA).
    10. Kangye Tan & Weihua Liu & Fang Xu & Chunsheng Li, 2023. "Optimization Model and Algorithm of Logistics Vehicle Routing Problem under Major Emergency," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, March.
    11. Wang, Ruijing & Gong, Jirui & Zhang, Siqi & Zhang, Weiyuan & Dong, Xuede & Hu, Yuxia & Yang, Guisen & Yan, Chenyi & Zhang, Shangpeng & Wang, Tong, 2025. "Comprehensive potential assessment of agrophotovoltaic systems: A case study of Hebei Province," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    12. Si, Guojin & Xia, Tangbin & Wang, Dong & Gebraeel, Nagi & Pan, Ershun & Xi, Lifeng, 2025. "Maintenance scheduling and vessel routing for offshore wind farms with multiple ports considering day-ahead wind-wave predictions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 379(C).
    13. Zhao, Xian & Lv, Zuheng & Qiu, Qingan & Wu, Yaguang, 2025. "Optimal mission abort and selective replacement policies for multi-state systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 264(PA).
    14. Akeb, Hakim & Moncef, Btissam & Durand, Bruno, 2018. "Building a collaborative solution in dense urban city settings to enhance parcel delivery: An effective crowd model in Paris," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 223-233.
    15. Krishankumar, Raghunathan & Sundararajan, Dhruva & Ishizaka, Alessio & Ravichandran, Kattur Soundarapandian, 2025. "A double hierarchy fuzzy decision approach for solar farm ranking sites in India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    16. Peters, Lennart & Madlener, Reinhard, 2017. "Economic evaluation of maintenance strategies for ground-mounted solar photovoltaic plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 264-280.
    17. Cuesta, Jokin & Leturiondo, Urko & Vidal, Yolanda & Pozo, Francesc, 2025. "A review of prognostics and health management techniques in wind energy," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    18. Segovia Ramírez, Isaac & Pliego Marugán, Alberto & García Márquez, Fausto Pedro, 2022. "A novel approach to optimize the positioning and measurement parameters in photovoltaic aerial inspections," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 371-389.
    19. Ayodele, T.R. & Ogunjuyigbe, A.S.O. & Odigie, O. & Munda, J.L., 2018. "A multi-criteria GIS based model for wind farm site selection using interval type-2 fuzzy analytic hierarchy process: The case study of Nigeria," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 1853-1869.
    20. Terracciano, Anthony Carmine & Vasu, Subith S. & Orlovskaya, Nina, 2016. "Design and development of a porous heterogeneous combustor for efficient heat production by combustion of liquid and gaseous fuels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 228-236.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:360:y:2024:i:c:s0306261924001764. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.