Optimization of CCUS supply chains for some european countries under the uncertainty

This paper develops a two-stage stochastic mixed integer linear programming model to optimize Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) supply chains in Italy, Germany and the UK. Few works are present in the literature about this topic, thus this paper overcomes this limitation considering carbon supply chains producing different products. The objective of the numerical models is to minimize expected total costs, under the uncertainties of the production costs of carbon-dioxide-based compounds. Once carbon dioxide emissions that should be avoided are fixed, according to environmental protection requirements for each country, the optimal design of these supply chains is obtained finding the distribution of carbon dioxide captured between utilization and storage sections, the amount of different carbon-based products and the best connection between each element inside the system. The expected total costs for the CCUS supply chain of Italy, Germany and the UK are, respectively, 77.3, 98.0 and 1.05 billion€/year (1004, 613 and 164 €/ton CO2 captured). A comparison with the respective deterministic model, analyzed elsewhere, is considered through the evaluation of the Expected Value of Perfect Information (EVPI) and the Value of Stochastic Solution (VSS). The former is 1.29 billion€/year, 0.18 million€/year and 8.31 billion€/year, respectively, for the CCUS of Italy, the UK and Germany. VSS on the other hand is equal to 1.56 billion€/year, 0 €/year and 0.1 billion€/year, respectively, for the frameworks of Italy, the UK and Germany. The results show that the uncertain production cost in the stochastic model does not have a significant effect on the results; thus, in this case, there are few advantages in solving a stochastic model instead of the deterministic one.