THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Tao Zhang

,

Xianyong Peng

,

Arifuggaman Arif

,

Sarkar Mohammad Raziul Hasan Rifat

,

Boudjelkha Mohammed Djamel Eddine

,

Saleh Mahamat Aboubakar Ousmane ，

,

Xinyu Wu

OPTIMAL SCHEDULE FOR COAL MINE INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEM INCORPORATING DECISION-MAKER'S PREFERENCES

ABSTRACT
Conventional optimization of Coal Mine Integrated Energy Systems can yield mathematically optimal yet operationally counter-intuitive schedules, which reduces interpretability and limits operator acceptance. This study proposes a preference-embedded scheduling framework that explicitly incorporates decision-maker operational priorities-particularly the prioritization of renewable and secondary energy-into a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model via rule-based feasibility constraints rather than subjective weighting. Qualitative preferences are formalized as operational consistency rules and converted into linear constraints using auxiliary binaries and a Big-M reformulation. A real-world case study from a Shanxi coal mine shows that renewable-energy prioritization reduces CO₂ emissions by 49% with a negligible cost increase (0.04%), while eliminating two observable non-rational behaviors: (i) curtailing renewable generation while purchasing grid electricity, and (ii) activating gas-fired heating while surplus thermal energy is curtailed. In contrast, prioritizing secondary energy alone may degrade both cost and emissions due to coupled conversion effects under the prevailing grid emission factor. The proposed framework provides a transparent, extensible decision-support tool for generating human-aligned and trustworthy schedules in industrial integrated energy systems.
KEYWORDS
Coal Mine Integrated Energy System, Decision-Maker’s Preferences, renewable energy, Secondary Energy, Interpretable Schedule, MILP
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2026-02-16
PAPER REVISED: 2026-03-17
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2026-06-03
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-07-11
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI260216098Z
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Optimal schedule for coal mine integrated energy system incorporating decision-maker's preferences

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence