Goal programming model for sustainable electricity production from biomass

Abstract

In this paper, we present a goal programming model for block level energy planning in order to make a block self-sufficient in electricity consumption, which includes the commercial energy consumption goal, the goal of generating electricity from biomass and food production goals with linear constraints on the available sources such as human power, animal power, tractor power, land area and on the requirement of the block such as cooking energy, lighting energy and energy for other operations, such as fodder for animal population. We try to achieve these goals through proper allocation of land for different crops. After reformulating the developed goal programming model into a linear programming format, we use the HYPER LINDO software package to solve it in a Pentium-based IBM-PC compatible computer system. The developed model is solved for a typical Indian block, namely Nilakkottai Block in Tamil Nadu, India. The model solution shows that the goal of generating electricity from biomass is achieved, the commercial energy consumption goal and pulses requirement goal are under-achieved and the sugar requirement goal is over-achieved. Furthermore, the cereal, vegetable and oilseed production goals are achieved. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.