Evaluation of economic, social and environmental effects of low-emission energy technologies in Poland - multi-criteria analysis

The study aims to assess the extent to which five low-emission energy technologies contribute to social welfare in the scope of the concept of sustainable development. Heuristic methods: multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and the Delphi method are used to resolve the multi-goal problem of this research. The study reveals that priorities of environmental and economic dimensions are most important, followed by social ones. Renewable energy technologies should be utilized instead of nuclear energy to meet sustainable development policy goals. First place belongs to photovoltaics, followed by biomass and biogas. Wind on-shore and wind off-shore are on third and fourth place respectively. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.