Abstract
This study reviews sustainable development (SD) elements through a holistic literature review to consider the relationship between SD indicators in the renewable energy (RE) sector, to identify critical drivers and methodologies needed to solve sustainability problems in RE. Through a systematic review, some compatible articles are selected from the electronic libraries. Driven information is employed to make a database that gives themes, dimensions, and indicators. Afterward, the sustainability evaluation of RE systems is investigated as an objective. Scopes and themes regarding SD and RE are investigated. As a result, SD indicators, RE systems, energy and sustainability, environmental sustainability assessment, energy security, electricity/power production, and energy geopolitics are the most existing scopes. Eleven sustainability frameworks, which scholars have used to consider RE sustainability, are identified appropriately. As a result, key dimensions are environmental, economic, social, technical, and institutional drivers. Therefore, indicators and criteria are reviewed for the top five drivers. Some of the most important of these indicators are: social (acceptability, job creation, social benefit, impact on health), economic (investment cost, operation, maintenance cost, and energy cost), environmental (CO2 emission, land use, impact on ecosystem, NOx and SOx emissions, GHG emission reduction, particle emission, noise), technical (efficiency, reliability, resource availability, maturity, safety, primary energy ratio, feasibility), and institutional (legal regulation of activity, government support, political stability, absence of violence/terrorism). Also, methodologies are examined to solve the challenge of sustainability evaluation. Literature review, MCDM techniques, LCA, PCA, and statistical methods are among the most widely used. Therefore, fully understanding the evaluation elements of SD in RE systems and having a database can speed up such studies.
Highlights
Achieving a solution to environmental problems requires long-term potential actions for sustainable development (SD)
The contribution of this study is to review the literature on sustainability with a focus on renewable systems to recognize the essential SD drivers, to recognize indicators that are necessary for sustainability assessments, and follow approaches for measuring sustainability to clarify the level of renewable systems
Many articles widely employed “environmentaleconomic- social” together in their framework to consider sustainability as a matter of an energy system, which is highly related to the scope of the study
Summary
Achieving a solution to environmental problems requires long-term potential actions for SD. In this regard, RE resources appear to be one of the most efficient and effective solutions. That is why there is an intimate connection between RE and SD [1]. RE has many advantages over fossil fuels for international security and peace [2]. It is essential for all countries to ensure they have a secure energy supply. It is especially true for European Union (EU) member states because of geopolitical considerations and ongoing reforms of energy markets [3]
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