Assessment of relevance of different effects in energy infrastructure revitalization in non-residential buildings

This paper analyses the effects of energy infrastructure revitalization in public non-residential buildings in the contexts of energy planning support and energy policy creation. The approach created acknowledges the different degree of relevance of the specific aspects, the specific interests of different stakeholders in energy activity and the variable degree of influence of each effect on the overall development and sustainability of energy solutions. It is based on the mathematical concept of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a multi-criteria optimization procedure. AHP conclusions provide significant contributions in strategic development and transitional path planning and energy policy instruments implementation, while taking all local society and economic specificities into account. Given the fact that the effects of energy infrastructure revitalization are diverse and multidimensional, this method provides an analytical framework suitable for a comprehensive understanding and relative relevance evaluation of each of the effects with the use of structured organization of thinking, facts, new knowledge insights, intuition, experience and performance indicators. The method establishes a comprehensive and systematic algorithm for reasoning and revealing all aspects of energy infrastructure revitalization, and results in an arguable alternative choice in correlation with quantitative (economic, technical) and qualitative (environmental, social) criteria. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.