Computing with words to assess the sustainability of renewable energy options

Appraising the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) options' contribution to Sustainable Development (SD) is a complex task, considering the different aspects of SD the imprecision and uncertainty of the related information as well as the qualitative aspects embodied, that cannot be represented by numerical values. The objective of the paper is to show how energy policy objectives towards SD and RES options are related and assessed using linguistic variables. The presented method extends the numerical multicriteria method TOPSIS for processing linguistic information, eliminating in parallel the loss of information caused by the approximation procedures and the ambiguity of the fuzzy ranking method's selection. Moreover, the application of the method's computerized software to the RES interventions proposed in the Hellenic National Action Plan for Greenhouse Gases is presented and discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.