A multicriteria decision making methodology for sustainable energy development

The annual increase of power energy consumption and the incapability of the currently installed energy production system in a hypothetical area to cover the future demand, are raising the issues of developing new policies and introducing new ways to produce energy in a sustainable way. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a well-known multicriteria analysis method, namely outranking relation theory, can be used to evaluate alternative scenarios for sustainable management of the energy system in the area. These scenarios are combinations of penetration of different energy producing units, such as conventional units and renewable energy units. A set of sustainability indicators is proposed, that denote resource, environmental, economic and social aspects of each scenario.