A fuzzy mixed integer goal programming approach for cooking and heating energy planning in rural India

In this study, a fuzzy mixed integer goal programming model (FMIGP) has been developed for rural cooking and heating energy planning in the Chikhli taluka of Buldhana district, Maharashtra, Central India. The model considers various scenarios such as economical, environmental, social acceptance and local resources to trade off between socio-economical and environmental issues related to cooking and heating energy in two villages namely Malshemba and Muradpur. Due to uncertainty involved in real world energy planning problems, exact input data is impossible to acquire. Hence FMIGP model is used to consider four fuzzy objectives. The solutions provide energy resource allocations at micro level with minimized cost, minimized emission, maximized social acceptance and maximized use of local resources. The proposed approach can handle fuzzy environmental realistic situation and can provide better solution to decision maker for rural energy planning.

► Fuzzy mixed integer goal programming for energy planning.
► Four objectives and six constraints have been considered for rural cooking and heating energy planning in two villages.
► In economic scenario, biogas and solar thermal have to be promoted for cooking and heating energy end use.
► In environmental scenario, LPG use has to be increased substantially to reduce consumption of biomass for cooking and biogas and solar thermal end uses for heating.