Cost-Effective, MAS-Based, Refrigerated Container System at Container Terminals
摘要
Nowadays, power consumption at container terminals is related to flexible loads. Arguably, the most significant flexible loads, are the refrigerated containers, termed reefers. On average, reefers are responsible for 47.87% of the total energy consumption of container terminals. To control the reefers in a container terminal, it is hard to succeed with conventional methods. The Multi-agent systems (MAS) are well suited to control complex systems. In this paper, we show that MAS can be particularly well-suited to control reefers in a container terminal. A MAS system, implemented in JADE, is proposed for active power management of reefers. Additionally we use a fuzzy logic system, integrated in the MAS structure, to estimate the coefficient of utilization of the reefers. The results of our simulations with real data of a large terminal, proved the effectiveness of the method. A reduction of 37.08% to total energy cost of reefers at a container terminal was achieved.