A Decision Support Approach to Provide Sustainable Solutions to the Consumer, by Using Electrical Appliances

The diversity of energy efficiency appliances existent on the market, with all its different issues, contributes to the existence of several tradeoffs (e.g., energy and water consumption vs. initial investment), which make the consumer’s choices in the market difficult. This becomes even more releva...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2019-02, Vol.11 (4), p.1143
Main Authors: Matias, João, Santos, Ricardo, Abreu, Antonio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appliances
Carbon dioxide
Case studies
Cost analysis
Cost control
Decision making
Electric appliances
Emissions
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
Evolutionary algorithms
Genetic algorithms
Households
Integrated approach
Literature reviews
Multiple criterion
Optimization
Optimization techniques
Sustainability
Washers & dryers
Water consumption
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Summary:The diversity of energy efficiency appliances existent on the market, with all its different issues, contributes to the existence of several tradeoffs (e.g., energy and water consumption vs. initial investment), which make the consumer’s choices in the market difficult. This becomes even more relevant, by knowing that nowadays a consumer tries to get a solution from the market, with a good compromise between the economic, social and environmental dimensions, and according to its priorities and specific needs, which can be different from other consumers. By adopting a multicriteria approach, combined with an optimization technique, based on evolutionary algorithms (EA), it will be possible to provide a set of sustainable solutions from the market to the consumer, that respects the compromise referred before. In this work, it will be presented an approach to support a decision-agent (DA) (consumer), by performing a set of sustainable choices based on electrical appliances, from the market and suitable to its needs. The method will be applied to a case study, to demonstrate its application. Regarding the obtained solutions, several savings are achieved (electrical and water consumption, CO2 emissions) by taking into account the consumer’s relative importance, regarding each dimension considered.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su11041143