Jin, TongdanChen, HepingLi, Binbin2015-06-032015-06-032015-04Li, B. (2015). <i>Renewable energy integration in cloud manufacturing for low carbon operations</i> (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.https://hdl.handle.net/10877/5555There has been a growing research interest in pursuing green and low carbon production systems, but only few if any quantitative approaches or systematic tools are available in literature. This research aims to fill this gap by synthesizing onsite renewable energy with the production-inventory model to attain net-zero carbon manufacturing operation. Meanwhile, modern industrial robotics manufacturing process is studied and analyzed to minimize the energy usage. We strive to address two fundamental questions. First, is it economically viable to integrate onsite wind and solar generation into large manufacturing facilities? Second, is it technically feasible to achieve a net-zero energy production-inventory system based on intermittent power? To that end, we synthesize the renewables generation technologies with multi-period, production-inventory system to create a multi-stage optimization model. We optimize the generation capacity, the production quantity, and the stock level in each period such that the aggregate energy and non-energy cost is minimized. Our model is tested in ten different locations with a wide range of wind speed and weather profile. The results show that virtually any manufacturing facility around the world can realize 100 percent renewable energy penetration at an affordable cost.Text110 pages1 file (.pdf)enRenewable EnergyRobotic AssemblyProduction management--Environmental aspectsManufacturing processes--Environmental aspectsRenewable energy sourcesThesis