The combined increase of energy demand and environmental pollution at a global scale is entailing a rethinking of the production models in sustainable terms. As a consequence, energy suppliers are starting to adopt strategies that flatten demand peaks in power plants by means of pricing policies that stimulate a change in the consumption practices of customers. A representative example is the Time-of-Use (TOU)-based tariffs policy, which encourages electricity usage at off-peak hours by means of low prices, while penalizing peak hours with higher prices. The TOU-based tariffs policy induces a partitioning of the time horizon into a set of time slots, each associated with a cost that becomes a part of the optimization objective. This thesis focuses on a representative bi-objective energy-efficient job scheduling problem on parallel identical machines under TOU-based tariffs by delving into the description of its inherent properties, mathematical formulations, and solution approaches. Specifically, the thesis starts by reviewing the flourishing literature on the subject, and providing a useful framework for theoreticians and practitioners. Subsequently, it describes the considered problem and investigates its theoretical properties. In the same chapter, it presents a first mathematical model for the problem, as well as a possible reformulation that exploits the structure of the solution space so as to achieve a considerable increase in compactness. Afterwards, the thesis introduces a sophisticated heuristic scheme to tackle the inherent hardness of the problem, and an exact algorithm that exploits the mathematical models. Then, it shows the computational efficiency of the presented solution approaches on a wide test benchmark. Finally, it presents a perspective on future research directions for the class of energy-efficient scheduling problems under TOU-based tariffs as a whole.

翻译：全球范围内能源需求与环境污染的双重增长，正促使生产模式向可持续方向重塑。由此，能源供应商开始采用通过定价政策平抑发电厂需求峰值、刺激用户改变消费行为的策略。具有代表性的例子是基于分时电价（TOU）的资费政策：该政策在低电价时段鼓励用电，同时以高价抑制高峰时段用电。TOU资费政策将时间轴划分为多个时段，每个时段对应一项纳入优化目标的成本。本论文聚焦TOU资费政策下并行同构机群中具有代表性的双目标能效作业调度问题，深入剖析其固有特性、数学建模与求解方法。具体而言，论文首先梳理该领域蓬勃发展的文献，构建适用于理论研究者与实践者的分析框架；随后阐述所研究问题并探究其理论性质，在同一章节提出该问题的首个数学模型及利用解空间结构特性实现紧凑性显著提升的重构方案；继而介绍应对该问题固有复杂性的启发式算法架构与基于数学模型的精确算法，通过广泛测试基准验证所提方法的计算效率；最终展望TOU资费政策下能效调度问题类的未来研究方向。