Assessing the renewable energy producers' environment in EU accession member states

One of the most important elements of renewable energy sources development in the accession member states of the European Union (EU) is the enhancement of the related producers. However, the success of the stated energy companies is based on the formulation of an up to date operational environment in each member state. Indeed, the dynamic environment of renewable energy producers in the EU accession member states is less mature than the environment of the 15 EU member states and is still developing due to the lower social acceptance and public awareness, the fact that the Kyoto Protocol is not a top priority yet as well as the absence of appropriate financial resources. The main aim of this paper is to present an integrated approach of qualitative judgments for assessing the renewable energy producers' operational environment of the fourteen (14) different member states of the EU accession. The current approach, which is based on a multi-criteria decision making methodology of quantifying multiple qualitative judgments, takes into account the many opportunities and threats that the energy market's new parameters involve, namely the continuously growing tendency to deregulate the energy market and the climate change. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.