Sustainability Assessment of Renewable Energy Systems

Abstract

The paper presents an attempt to select, define and apply the sustainability set of indicators for the energy system assessment. Starting from the general concept of sustainability it is defined the set of indicators reflecting specific criteria for the energy system evaluation. The particular attention is devoted to the resource, environment, social and economic criteria. Among these group of criteria there are individual indicators emphasising respective aspect of the sustainability concept. Obviously, this type of approach has its limitation due to the lack of data for the serious consideration of the system. But it should be anticipated that these excises might serve as the guidance for the eventual future application. Also, it should be emphasised that this type of methodology for the assessment of energy system will become useful tool only if it proves to be justified in the engineering practice. The example under consideration is an island with only individual consumption to be satisfied with solar, wind, biomass and oil fired power plant which represent four options under consideration. The set of indicators is defined and determined with the aim to demonstrate the method of decision making procedure in selecting the option which meet specified numerical values of selected indicators and constrain reflecting the non-numeric information of weighting factor for the determination of general criteria for the selection of appropriate option.