ABSTRACT
The model described by Debanne illustrates another mathematical approach to modeling energy systems—the use of network flow methods. Although models which can be formulated in network flow terms can also be described in linear programming terms, Debanné notes that the network formulation is “extremely economical in computer core storage requirements and may also be considerably more efficient to solve.” Any advantage of network flow models in this respect appears to be due to the special characteristics of the class of linear programs (the so-called transportation problems) which can be conveniently formulated as networks and theorems that take advantage of these characteristics.
