A combined interactive procedure using preference-based evolutionary multiobjective optimization. Application to the efficiency improvement of the auxiliary services of power plants

While the auxiliary services required for the operation of power plants are not the main components of the plant, their energy consumption is often significant, and it can be reduced by implementing a series of improvement strategies. However, the cost of implementing these changes can be very high, and has to be evaluated. Indeed, a further economic analysis should be considered in order to maximize the profitability of the investment. In this paper, we propose a multiobjective optimization problem to determine the most suitable strategies to maximize the energy saving, to minimize the economic investment and to maximize the Internal Rate of Return of the investment. Solving this real-life multiobjective optimization problem with a decision maker presents several challenges and difficulties and we have developed a novel interactive procedure which combines three different approaches in order to make use of the main advantages of each method. The idea is to start with the approximation of the Pareto optimal set, in order to gain a global understanding of the trade-offs among the objectives, using evolutionary multiobjective optimization; next step is aiding the decision maker to explore the efficient set and to identify the subset of solutions which fits her/his preferences, for which interactive multiple criteria decision making methodologies are used; and finally we concentrate the search for new solutions into the most interesting part of the efficient set with the help of a preference-based evolutionary algorithm. This allows us to build a flexible scheme that is progressively adapted to the decision maker’s reactions until (s)he finds the most preferred solution. The interactive combined procedure proposed is applied in practice for solving the problem of the auxiliary services with a real decision maker, extracting interesting insights about the efficiency improvement of the auxiliary services. With this practical application, we show the usefulness of the interactive procedure proposed, and we highlight the importance of an understandable feedback and an adaptive process. 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.