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

Growing social concern about the environmental impact of economic developme nt 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 invo lved in the decision making process. This paper proposes a methodology that combines several multi-criteria methods to address electricity planning pr oblems within a realistic context. The method is applied to an electricity planning exercise in Spain with a planning horizon set for the year 2030. T he model includes the following objectives: (1) total cost; (2) CO2; (3) SO 2; and (1) NO, emissions as well as;he amount of radioactive waste produced . An efficient social compromise between these conflicting objectives is ob tained which shows the advantages of using this model for policy-making pur poses.