Integrating Energy Management Systems and Renewable Energy Sources in Green Warehouses: The Energy-Aware Green Sequencing and Routing Problem

With the increased attention towards environmental sustainability, warehouse operations are under observation for their contribution towards greenhouse gas emissions. To motivate decarbonisation, renewable energy sources are being employed along with energy storage systems to exploit clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. This paper extends the novel Green Sequencing and Routing Problem in the literature. It focuses on proposing an energy management system for a warehouse able to purchase/sell energy from/to the grid, equipped with a rooftop photovoltaic system and battery storage, while also planning the sequencing of storage and retrieval operations and routing of both conventional fuel-based and electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming model is proposed to address the problem. Preliminary computational experiments are performed on realistic instances for both normal and cloudy days. Results indicate the significance of renewable energy in achieving lower costs and promoting sustainability within the warehouse.