Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is the proposal for the utilization of Operational Research methodologies, in particular Multicriteria Analysis and Mathematical Programming, for the development of an integrated methodological framework to evaluate and support decisions and actions of stakeholders at all levels of management in the modern, recently deregulated Greek natural gas market. In this sense, it is suggested to design models that use the above methodologies to support decision-making at all levels of the gas market management.•At the Strategic level, a multi-criteria decision-making model is proposed to assist decision-makers in infrastructure development and investment evaluation with a focus on identifying alternative natural gas corridors to the Country. At this level, decisions are mostly made by national bodies and are mainly a long-term implementation horizon. In this context, after listing all possible alternative gas supply corridors to Greece (existing and non), they were su ...
The purpose of this thesis is the proposal for the utilization of Operational Research methodologies, in particular Multicriteria Analysis and Mathematical Programming, for the development of an integrated methodological framework to evaluate and support decisions and actions of stakeholders at all levels of management in the modern, recently deregulated Greek natural gas market. In this sense, it is suggested to design models that use the above methodologies to support decision-making at all levels of the gas market management.•At the Strategic level, a multi-criteria decision-making model is proposed to assist decision-makers in infrastructure development and investment evaluation with a focus on identifying alternative natural gas corridors to the Country. At this level, decisions are mostly made by national bodies and are mainly a long-term implementation horizon. In this context, after listing all possible alternative gas supply corridors to Greece (existing and non), they were subsequently evaluated on the basis of a multi-criteria system for evaluating alternative gas supply routes to Greece based on three preference axes, taking into account the knowledge and experience of the executives of the national energy policy: Economics of Supply, Security of Supply and Cooperation between Countries. The modelling was based on the design of an additive value model and the role of the decision maker was given to the Head of the national energy policy on gas. Within the advantages of the method. An important advantage of the method is that it eliminates the requirement for the energy policy maker executive to be an expert in multicriteria analysis while at the same time utilizing at the most his knowledge and experience.•At the Tactical-Managerial level, all the parameters involved in decisions regarding the evaluation of agreements and contractual terms of existing contracts as well as the establishment of operational objectives within the business plan setting procedure or potential opportunities identifying, are modeled using Mathematical Programming. These decisions are usually of medium-term time horizon, and mainly concern the board of directors of supply companies.•At the Operational level a decision support model is designed exploiting the principles of Mathematical Programming taking into account contractual, regulatory as well as other technical constraints and supporting day-to-day (short-term) operations of portfolio managers, though also taking into account medium-term objectives, set by the board of directors.Apart from designing the models of each level, key element of the thesis is the proposal that in order to optimally achieve and align the objectives at all management levels, which can be schematically depicted in the form of a pyramid, they should interact with each other, to ensure both national (security of supply, low fuel costs) and corporate objectives achievement (maximizing profits, minimizing overall costs) as well as harmonization with the respective regulatory framework (daily operation in accordance with applicable Codes / Regulations). In this context, the three-level models were designed with the provision of appropriate interfaces between them to ensure channelling both the guidance that emerges at the highest levels of management to the lower-level models and the proposed by lowest levels models actions to the highest ones, in order to be properly taken into consideration and assessed while supporting strategic and tactical energy policy decisions for the gas market.Given this structure, and as the management of actions at each of the levels described above require combination of various different parameters with different weighting factors, which are not easy to correlate and systematically evaluate the impact of each of them, the thesis proposes the support of business decisions at each level by respective Decision Support Systems, which systematically model the problems set, with all the known limitations that apply as well as the knowledge (to the extent it is possible to be reflected) of competent executives.Systematic modelling of business problems with Decision Support Systems is neither intended nor capable of substituting for the knowledge and experience of competent executives, as market-based correlations often cannot be attributed to mathematical techniques and terms. The added value of these Systems though is that they enable the decision maker to obtain as complete a picture as possible of each factor's impact, by creating and executing many different scenarios / approaches and thus, to lead himself to the most rational for him decision.
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