Multi-criteria Evaluation of the Transition of Power Generation Systems

Energy scenarios describe possible future states or developments of energy systems, and are often used to provide orientation for strategic decision making in the energy sector or in energy policy, e.g., for planning the energy transition towards renewable energy technologies. In this context, multiple conflicting criteria, e.g., CO2-emissions and system costs, need to be considered. Hence, Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can support drawing conclusions from energy scenarios. However, as energy scenarios typically look several decades into the future, there are time-related challenges for providing adequate decision support: Today’s decisions can lead to path dependencies, uncertainties associated with the input parameters and results of energy scenarios increase significantly over time, and the preferences of stakeholders may vary over time. We present a multi-period multi-criteria approach for the evaluation of transition pathways which allows to address these challenges. The approach is based on the outranking method PROMETHEE and consists of a three-phase procedure: In the first phase, the performance scores of the alternatives are calculated for each time-step. In the second phase, the alternatives are evaluated with PROMETHEE II in each period, and in the third phase, the evaluations of alternatives are aggregated along transition paths. As an example, the method is applied for planning the power generation system in a bio-energy village in southern Lower Saxony, Germany.