Validation and legitimation of an analytic hierarchy approach to integrated resource planning for electric utilities

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to evaluate a team-based multiattribute framework for integrated resource planning (IRP) for an electric utility in a developing country. The case was the Barbados Light and Power Company (BL&P), an investor-owned electric utility serving the needs of the island nation of Barbados. An experiment was then evaluated using a comprehensive validation and legitimation process. The validation process was undertaken using a structured interview with open ended questions in order to elicit feedback from the six members of the decision team. A similar interview process was also used to elicit legitimation feedback from five concerned stakeholders who had a vested interest in the experiment. The results showed that the experiment accurately reproduced the results of an actual resource decision undertaken by the utility in 1988. Legitimation results indicate that whereas the AHP approach may be feasibly applied to an investor owned utility with prior experience in team decision techniques such as those used in total quality management, unfortunately publicly owned utilities in similarly placed developing countries may not have the same success. The authors conclude that although the results of their experiment are only generalisable to a small sub-set of electric utilities, they may still offer some important caveats on the use of the AHP as a platform for managing the complexities of the IRP process. They also offer this research as an example on how one ought to evaluate both the validity and legitimacy of a "one time only" decision such as those encountered in strategic problems.