Energy resource allocation presents a multi-criteria decision making problem with the criteria being quantitative and/or qualitative. Solving such a problem requires an integrated approach. In this paper, an integrated model using goal programming and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been developed for energy resource allocation. It incorporates nine quantitative and three qualitative criteria. The model has been applied to the household sector of Madras, India. A detailed sensitivity analysis has also been carried out. Three additional scenarios have been developed. Use of the model suggested: natural gas, fuelwood and solar thermal for cooking; biogas and electricity generated from fuelwood for water pumping; and all decentralized electricity generation technologies for lighting and operating household appliances. Grid electricity was perferred only for lighting. © 1995.

Ganesh L S

Department of Management Studies

Analytic hierarchy process

Analytical hierarchy process

Developing country

Energy modelling

Energy resources

Goal programming

HOUSEHOLD ENERGY USE

HOUSEHOLD SECTOR

modelling approach

RESOURCES ALLOCATION

INDIA, MADRAS

IIT Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1959, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.

IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the MHRD

It currently offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 596 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

IIT Madras

Energy resource allocation incorporating qualitative and quantitative criteria: An integrated model using goal programming and AHP

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences

Nearly half of the worlds population does not have access to cleaner cooking fuels, and this is attributed to several things including the lack of resources (fuel), infrastructure (production and distribution), purchasing power (poverty), relevant policies, and a combination of these reasons. A households fuel choice aims to minimize cost and maximize benefit, both of which are intricate functions of many factors. The factors influencing a households fuel preference, and how manipulating these factors such as subsidies, improved distribution networks and user awareness will affect fuel preference is reported. A cost-benefit analysis (CBA) model was developed to study the fuel preferences of rural Indian households. Seven cooking fuels (biomass (wood and crop residue), dung, charcoal, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), biogas, kerosene and electricity) were ranked in order of household preference. Various scenarios were considered to demonstrate the sensitivity of fuel preference to multiple factors such as subsidies and improvement in cooking technology. Results obtained from the model demonstrated strong agreement with the current fuel usage pattern in rural India. The model was then applied to compare traditional cookstoves (TCS) to non-subsidized improved cookstoves (ICS). The benefit-to-cost ratio of solid fuels when used in ICS was lower than that when used in TCS. A similar trend was observed for fully-subsidized ICS; indicating that price is not the only obstacle to the adoption of an ICS. Sensitivity analysis was performed to demonstrate the utility of this CBA model in framing policies to promote fuel transition in rural India. Although providing subsidies on LPG and electricity can make these cleaner fuels an attractive option, biomass will remain a households preferred fuel unless distribution networks and infrastructure is developed to ensure their uninterrupted supply and accessibility. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

A model for cost-benefit analysis of cooking fuel alternatives from a rural Indian household perspective

AHP has been used for solving multi-criteria resource allocation problems by converting them into equivalent single objective, maximization-type LP problems. At least two approaches can be identified for such applications. In the first approach, the AHP priorities are used as coefficients in the objective function of the LP format, and in the second approach, the benefit-cost ratios are used as the coefficients. This paper evaluates the two approaches. It is shown here that both the approaches are suitable if the criteria (used in the AHP model) are sought to be maximized. However, they are shown to be inappropriate if the criteria are sought to be minimized. A new, simple approach is suggested for the latter case and an extension has been proposed to tackle problems with mixed criteria. The implications of the study on other preference elicitation methods have also been pointed out. © 1995.

European Journal of Operational Research

Using AHP for resource allocation problems

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the popular and powerful techniques for decision making. A detailed survey of the literature has revealed that there exists no formal evaluation of the group preference aggregation methods currently employed in AHP. This paper provides such an evaluation using well established social choice axioms, which govern the process of combining individual opinions to obtain a single group opinion. The Geometric Mean Method (GMM) and the Weighted Arithmetic Mean Method (WAMM) are the two methods evaluated. It is shown, using counter-examples, that the GMM does not always satisfy the Pareto optimality axiom, which is one of the prominent and widely accepted social choice axioms. This finding is significant as the GMM has been the most commonly used method in AHP for combining individual opinions to form a group opinion. The other method, viz. WAMM has satisfied all the axioms, except the 'independence of irrelevant alternatives' axiom. In order to use the WAMM, one has to find the weightages (importance) to be assigned to the members of the group. This is often a difficult task, especially so if the group is large as in the case of public policy decisions and when judgements are elicited through the use of questionnaires. These situations need an objective method to derive members' weightages but only a few studies are available in the literature to address such a situation. We propose a simple and intuitively appealing eigenvector based method to intrinsically determine the weightages for group members using their own subjective opinions. The superiority of the proposed method over the previous methods is brought out in the paper. © 1994.

Group preference aggregation methods employed in AHP: An evaluation and an intrinsic process for deriving members' weightages

The optimal allocation of energy resources to various energy end uses is an important strategy for bridging the energy supply and demand gap in India. It has been recognized that the allocation should be guided by multiple criteria. A multiobjective programming model for such an allocation process is presented in the paper. The normative model has been applied for the households sector of Madras city. The model is solved using non pre‐emptive goal programming. Variations in the original model have been made to build alternative scenarios. The results of the original model and the alternative scenarios indicate that the use of solar thermal energy, natural gas, LPG, fuelwood, kerosene and lignite should be promoted for cooking, and the use of grid electricity and diesel, should be promoted for meeting water pumping demands. They favour the use of electricity generated from diesel for lighting, and the use of solar photovoltaics for meeting the electricity demands of household appliances. The results also indicate that grid electricity and electricity generated from fuelwood should be promoted to meet the demands of all the four household end uses, and point to the need for more research into solar photovoltaics, which may become competitive for meeting household demands in the future. Copyright © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

International Journal of Energy Research

A multiobjective programming approach to energy resource allocation problems

Auto Tech Review

“Request Govt for A Long-Term Roadmap on Safety & Emissions”

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

Linear programming in single- and multiple-objective systems, by James P. Ignizio. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Price: $34.95 cloth

Journal	Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
ISSN	00380121
Open Access	No