Evaluation of Fuzzy Linear Programming Application in Energy Models

Fuzzy Linear Programming (FLP) approach is an effective approach that has not been attended extensively by research and academic centers in energy planning field up to now. It seems that this inattention roots in some unknown and uninvestigated grounds about this approach that should be researched before any sectoral, regional, national or international applications. In this paper the authors tried to investigate different factors influence FLP modeling. Some factors challenge FLP application in energy modeling field. Other factors strengthen it as a serious competitor for other strategies under uncertainty like Stochastic Programming and Minimax Regret Strategy. Unfamiliarity of energy modelers and planners with this method, no favor of academic circles, confusion of modelers and planners stemmed from plurality of fuzzification and defuzzification methods and the lack of effective and comprehensive softwares for solving FLP problems are some of the obstacles against FLP application in energy planning field. In contrast, variant methods for different problems simplicity, flexibility, and possibility of FLP application in current supply energy models are strong points that propound FLP as an effective approach. Some remedies had been proposed to overcome these obstacles. Designing a software is a vital step. GAMS environment help us for this designation. Fuzzy GAMS is an idea to expand GAMS capabilities to fuzzy optimization models.