Applying energy aspects on simulation of energy-intensive production systems

The electricity market within the European Union was liberalized in 2004, which means that Sweden, together with other countries with generally low electricity prices, will face higher electricity prices. This has triggered research with the aim to help energy-intensive companies reduce their electricity usage and total energy usage as well. This paper introduces a new concept for simulating energy-intensive production. Using specially built simulation models helps companies take more than the time aspect into consideration when planning their production. Often energy and power utilization is an important aspect to consider when planning, since the cost for energy and power usage can be high, especially if a "load subscription" is used and the usage is above the company\´s subscribed level. The methodology described helps breaking down energy parameters into three groups and gives examples of how the simulation model can be built to take energy and power into consideration