Circular economy requires a material-specific and systemic approach in the design and management of production processes, as indicated in the European Commission Action Plan adopted in 2015 to promote global competitiveness, sustainable economic growth and create new jobs. This new approach implicates a more efficient use of resources within the entire production chain that aims to "close the loop" of the product life cycle. It promotes a self-regeneration that turns waste into resources. In this way, the recycling and reuse of recycled materials is constantly increasing and the demand for raw materials is decreasing, allowing waste to be contained. The concepts of the circular economy were applied to develop a two-region partial equilibrium model of an automotive manufacturing plant based on the ETSAP MARKAL-EFOM (TIMES) generator, aimed at identifying more efficient and sustainable configurations of the production system through a scenario analysis, taking into account energy recovery and recycling of plastic waste material from production processes as well as reducing CO2 pollutant emissions. The multi-region approach allowed modelling two industrial units, the Assembly Unit and the Plastic Unit, as two different modelling "regions" with independent production of electricity, heat and cooling. Such "regions" are connected through unidirectional "trades" processes, i.e. the components produced in the Plastic Unit and he polypropylene waste, which represent a secondary input material. The model was calibrated based on real consumption data for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 and optimized over a time horizon of ten years. Five medium-term evolutionary scenarios addressed energy and materials recovery and evaluated the feasibility of innovative technological solutions: photovoltaic, energy recovery from the molding process of polypropylene components, production of syngas from waste materials, recovery of polypropylene waste, use of pigmented polypropylene for bumper molding.
A multi-region representation of an automotive manufacturing plant with the TIMES energy model
Di leo Senatro;Pietrapertosa Filomena;Salvia Monica;Cosmi Carmelina
2020
Abstract
Circular economy requires a material-specific and systemic approach in the design and management of production processes, as indicated in the European Commission Action Plan adopted in 2015 to promote global competitiveness, sustainable economic growth and create new jobs. This new approach implicates a more efficient use of resources within the entire production chain that aims to "close the loop" of the product life cycle. It promotes a self-regeneration that turns waste into resources. In this way, the recycling and reuse of recycled materials is constantly increasing and the demand for raw materials is decreasing, allowing waste to be contained. The concepts of the circular economy were applied to develop a two-region partial equilibrium model of an automotive manufacturing plant based on the ETSAP MARKAL-EFOM (TIMES) generator, aimed at identifying more efficient and sustainable configurations of the production system through a scenario analysis, taking into account energy recovery and recycling of plastic waste material from production processes as well as reducing CO2 pollutant emissions. The multi-region approach allowed modelling two industrial units, the Assembly Unit and the Plastic Unit, as two different modelling "regions" with independent production of electricity, heat and cooling. Such "regions" are connected through unidirectional "trades" processes, i.e. the components produced in the Plastic Unit and he polypropylene waste, which represent a secondary input material. The model was calibrated based on real consumption data for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 and optimized over a time horizon of ten years. Five medium-term evolutionary scenarios addressed energy and materials recovery and evaluated the feasibility of innovative technological solutions: photovoltaic, energy recovery from the molding process of polypropylene components, production of syngas from waste materials, recovery of polypropylene waste, use of pigmented polypropylene for bumper molding.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
