A multiple criteria decision making approach for electricity planning in Spain: Economic versus environmental objectives

Growing social concern about the environmental impact of economic development has drawn attention to the need to integrate environmental criteria into energy decision-making problems. This has made electricity planning issues more complex given the multiplicity of objectives and decision-makers involved in the decision making process. The paper proposes a methodology that combines several multi-criteria methods to address electricity planning problems within a realistic context. The method is applied to an electricity planning exercise in Spain with a planning horizon set for the year 2030. The model includes the following objectives: (1) total cost; (2) CO2; (3) SO2 and (4) NOx emissions as well as the amount of radioactive waste produced. An efficient social compromise between these conflicting objectives is obtained, which shows the advantages of using this model for policy-making purposes.