Developing a DSR-HNS policy making framework for electric energy systems

Sustainable Development (SD) has played a major role as a foundation of several policy making frameworks developed mainly by international organizations. In this paper, some critical points regarding the origination and formulation of the SD concept are discussed. It is argued that the SD concerns with selected sectors and regions rather than the whole society and all regions of the world. To tackle these shortcomings, the conventional definition of SD is extended in this paper according to a broad philosophy of harmonizing key aspects of human, nature and systems performances over generations. Based on this extended definition, an improved Driving Force-State-Response (DSR-HNS) policy making framework is introduced. The main contribution is the modeling of the state block by human, nature and systems components to design overall and coherent policies. A procedure using the framework is also elaborated to monitor the current policies and design new ones, which provides a dynamic, nonlinear, feedback controlled policy making practice, not accommodated by existing policy making frameworks. Finally, a case study is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of the modified framework and the proposed model. The study assesses Iran's electric power generation system from sustainability point of view and develops new policies. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.