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Material flow networks are a specific technique for material flow analysis. Software tools based on this method have been used by many companies to analyze and improve complex production systems. While their intuitive modeling approach strongly enhances the identification of optimization potentials, automatic model optimization is not yet possible. The KOMSA project has closed this important methodological and instrumental gap. This article presents the developed prototype of a material flow-based optimization tool. We provide numerical results on the convergence of the implemented optimization algorithms. The added value of integrating optimization with material flow analysis is illustrated by applying the software tool to a real optimization problem from the waste industry.

Increasing the share of renewable energies in electricity and heat generation is the cornerstone of a climate-friendly energy transition. However, as renewable technologies rely on diverse natural resources, the design of decarbonized energy systems inevitably leads to environmental trade-offs. This paper presents the case study of a comprehensive impact assessment for different future development scenarios of a decentralized renewable energy system in Germany. It applies an adapted ecological scarcity method (ESM) that improves decision-support by ranking the investigated scenarios and revealing their main environmental shortcomings: increased mineral resource use and pollutant emissions due to required technical infrastructure and a substantial increase in land use due to biomass combustion. Concerning the case study, the paper suggests extending the set of considered options, e.g., towards including imported wind energy. More generally, the findings underline the need for a comprehensive environmental assessment of renewable energy systems that integrate electricity supply with heating, cooling, and mobility. On a methodical level, the ESM turns out to be a transparent and well adaptable method to analyze environmental trade-offs from renewable energy supply. It currently suffers from missing quantitative targets that are democratically sufficiently legitimized. At the same time, it can provide a sound basis for an informed discussion on such targets.

Stoffstromnetzbasierte Softwaretools werden heute von zahlreichen Unternehmen eingesetzt, um komplexe Produktionssysteme zu analysieren und zu verbessern. Stoffstromnetze sind eine spezielle Technik der Stoffstromanalyse, deren intuitiver Modellierungsansatz die Identifizierung von Optimierungspotenzialen begünstigt. Eine automatische Modelloptimierung ist dagegen bislang nicht möglich. Hier werden der Prototyp eines stoffstromnetzbasierten Optimierungswerkzeugs sowie numerische Ergebnisse zur Konvergenzgeschwindigkeit der implementierten Optimierungsalgorithmen vorgestellt. Durch die Anwendung des Optimierungswerkzeugs auf ein Planungsproblem aus der Abfallwirtschaft werden die Vorteile einer Integration von Stoffstromanalyse und Optimierung illustriert.Material flow networks are a specific technique for material flow analysis. Software tools based on this method have been used by many companies to analyze and improve complex production systems. While their intuitive modeling approach strongly enhances the identification of optimization potentials, automatic model optimization is not yet possible. This article presents the prototype of a material flow based optimization tool. Numerical results on the convergence of the implemented optimization algorithms are provided. The added value of integrating optimization with material flow analysis is illustrated by applying the software tool to a real optimization problem from the waste industry.