A huge amount of waste heat is emitted annually to the environment by energy intensive industries. Thermally activated advanced absorption cycles can be promising candidates for utilizing the waste heat of industry sector. In such absorption systems, it is desirable to utilize the waste heat from industries for heating and cooling applications in commercial and residential sectors. For this purpose, it is necessary to transport energy over some distance because the waste heat source and demand are generally located apart from each other. Transportation of steam, hot water or chilled water requires high construction costs for insulation. There is an efficient method of energy transportation using absorption system called "solution transportation absorption (STA) system". The solution is transported at an ambient temperature so that tube-insulation is not required. This paper shows system analysis of the above-mentioned system and the optimal result, using mathematical optimization. The mathematical model is a demand driven linear programming (LP) optimization model which provides useful energy demand for a metropolitan area by industry waste heat supply and transportation of energy through STA system. The optimum energy system with and without introducing STA system in the long-term energy planning is obtained. At the end, the effect on the pollution emission and fossil fuel based energy conservation is obtained. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.