Efficacy of energy consumption policy in Iranian National Gas Company: System dynamics approach

The ever-increasing global demand for energy, oil production/supply and the necessity for alternative approaches regarding energy harvesting have opened a deeper horizon for natural gas utilization. The complexity of the demand–supply match of natural gas and the lack of an optimal pattern of energy consumption have been daunting tasks for the energy decision-makers in the last century. Although laws regarding energy efficiency are formulated and even implemented in some cases, there was no benchmarking analysis which takes all useful indexes into account until recently. However, in this article, by identifying the factors affecting the pattern of gas consumption through the system dynamic approach, regulations associated with productivity are assessed. For this, a regional dynamic integrated gas model is developed. The model effectiveness in handling the system dynamism and various scenarios are investigated through a real case study in Yazd—a central province of Iran—to ascertain the proposed approach. The results show that the developed targeted subsidy law is effective in the household sector. Despite the fact that the thorough implementation of the energy efficiency regulations has positive environmental and economic impacts, these regulations have not been fully implemented in many cases and do not have the required efficiency in the industry sector.