Traditionally, manufacturing enterprises pay flat rates for each kiloWatt-hour (kWh) of electricity consumed. Newly available electric tariffs that charge both energy consumption (in kWh) and peak demand (in kiloWatts, i.e., kW) with varying time-of-use (TOU) rates have started to gain...

As required by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, utility companies across the U.S. are offering TOU (time-of-use) based electricity demand response programs. The TOU rate gives consumers opportunities to manage their electricity bill by shifting use from on-peak periods to mid-peak and off-peak...

In the literature of reliability engineering, reliability of the weighted k-out-of-n system can be calculated using component reliability based on the structure function. The calculation usually assumes that the true component reliability is completely known. However, this is not the case in...