Multi-criteria assessment of new and renewable energy power plants

The multi-criteria evaluation of new and renewable technologies demonstrates the potential analysis of complex systems. Every energy system under consideration is an entity by itself, defined by the respective number of parameters which are deterministically interrelated according to the physical laws. Sustainability indicators take into account the economic and environmental resources parameters. This paper presents selection of criteria and options for the new and renewable energy technologies assessment based on the analysis and synthesis of parameters under the information deficiency method. In order to present an evaluation of the new energy technologies, a number of options featuring some of the characteristics measured by the selected sustainability indicators are taken into consideration. For each option under consideration, the sustainability indicators are defined in order to verify their rating under the specific constraints and to obtain the generalised index of sustainability rating of all options. The aim of this paper is to define energy indicators used in the assessment of energy systems which meet the sustainability criterion. In this respect, the following indicators are taken into consideration: energy resources, environment capacity, social indicators and economic indicators. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.