A GOAL PROGRAMMING IMBEDDED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT

Energy conservation has been proven to be an effective economy-fostering strategy for the energy importing community. It not only reduces the direct energy costs but also brings communities other economic benefits, such as job creation and a multiplier effect of the investment in conservation activities and respending of the money saved through energy conservation. Community energy conservation planning consists of a process of allocating a given amount of budget to promising conservation activities so that the desired community goals can be optimally achieved. The desired goals vary depending on the community\u27s needs and wants with regard to the conservation investment. This dissertation presents a decision support system (DSS) for community energy conservation planning which is based on an interactive goal programming model. The goal programming model imbedded as a subsystem incorporates various goals into the planning scheme and analyzes them according to the preference mechanism set by the community itself. The community\u27s desired goals and their relative priorities were determined through a town meeting, and the relevant goal programming model was constructed and implemented in a highly interactive environment, involving the community and other energy conservation interest groups, so that is could reflect community characteristics as much as possible