EMDSS: An optimization-based decision support system for energy systems management under changing climate conditions - An application to the Toronto-Niagara Region, Canada

Management of energy systems is a challenging task, involving a large number of social, economic, environmental, technical, and political factors. This challenge is being complicated with growing concerns of climate change impacts on various natural processes and human activities. To comprehensively deal with such complexities, system analysis approach are desired as it can address various impact factors and facilitate the assessment of policy consequence and climate change response within an interactive energy management systems. The objective of this study is to develop an optimization-based decision support system (EMDSS) and the relevant software package to provide comprehensive analysis of climate change impacts, and energy and environmental policy responses within an energy management system framework. EMDSS is then applied to the Toronto-Niagara Region (TNR), Canada. The results indicated that EMDSS was effective for analyzing and visualizing various scenarios within energy management systems. The obtained information can direct policy makers to initiate strategies for dealing with various issues of climatic change, energy development and environmental management. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.