A Time-Division-Based Constrained Multiobjective Optimization Method for Coal Mine Integrated Energy System Dispatch Problem

The coal mine integrated energy system dispatch problem (CMIES-DP) is a constrained multiobjective optimization problem (CMOP) with the characteristics of multiple objectives, high-dimensional decision variables, and multiple constraints, which makes it challenging for existing methods. On the one hand, existing constrained multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (CMOEAs) are prone to falling into local optima when facing problems with high-dimensional variables. On the other hand, the relationship between objectives and constraints of CMIES-DP has not been fully analyzed to guide the design of targeted solving techniques. Therefore, this article proposes a time-division-based CMOEA (TDCEA), where the characteristics of CMIES-DP are analyzed to design two main strategies. First, by analyzing the temporal relationship of objectives and constraints, CMIES-DP is decomposed into multiple subproblems with fewer variables and constraints, and these subproblems are sequentially solved to obtain better decision variables. Then, a random concatenation method is designed to combine the decision variables output from subproblems into a solution set with complete decision variables, and the new solution set will be further optimized to find feasible Pareto optimal solutions. Second, the relationship between constraints and objectives is analyzed to guide the design of evolving populations, so as to improve the search ability of the algorithm. In the experiments, the proposed algorithm is used to solve a real-world CMIES-DP case, and results demonstrate that compared with other advanced algorithms, the proposed algorithm achieves better performance regarding diversity, convergence, and distribution.