IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/operea/v21y2021i3d10.1007_s12351-019-00492-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy sustainability: a definition and assessment model

Author

Listed:
  • Evangelos Grigoroudis

    (Technical University of Crete)

  • Vassilis S. Kouikoglou

    (Technical University of Crete)

  • Yannis A. Phillis

    (Technical University of Crete)

  • Fotis D. Kanellos

    (Technical University of Crete)

Abstract

Energy is the fundamental component of all economic activity and a central ingredient of international politics. Energy is finite and often creates externalities. A fundamental question then arises about its sustainability. Assessing energy sustainability is important since energy is a key factor of all economies. However, energy generation imposes large pressures on the environment and is mostly based on limited resources. Energy sustainability is related with the provision of adequate, reliable, and affordable energy, in conformity with social and environmental requirements. In this paper we develop a mathematical model that defines and measures energy sustainability for a given region or country. It is based on a number of indicators that cover such aspects as environmental impact, access, health, economy, generation, consumption, and security. Statistical methods and fuzzy logic reasoning lead to an index in [0, 1] and a subsequent ranking. A sensitivity analysis discovers those aspects of an economy that have the highest potential for improving energy sustainability. The model, unlike most existing ones, is nonlinear and uncovers some counterintuitive results such as the higher rankings of Brazil over the USA and Canada. Such results are explained by the high performance of Brazil in the area of energy security and the low scores of the USA and Canada in generation, consumption, and environmental aspects of energy.

Suggested Citation

  • Evangelos Grigoroudis & Vassilis S. Kouikoglou & Yannis A. Phillis & Fotis D. Kanellos, 2021. "Energy sustainability: a definition and assessment model," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 1845-1885, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:operea:v:21:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s12351-019-00492-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s12351-019-00492-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12351-019-00492-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12351-019-00492-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Mukherjee, Ishani, 2011. "Conceptualizing and measuring energy security: A synthesized approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 5343-5355.
    2. Iddrisu, Insah & Bhattacharyya, Subhes C., 2015. "Sustainable Energy Development Index: A multi-dimensional indicator for measuring sustainable energy development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 513-530.
    3. World Bank, 2011. "The Changing Wealth of Nations : Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2252.
    4. Narula, Kapil & Reddy, B. Sudhakara, 2016. "A SES (sustainable energy security) index for developing countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 326-343.
    5. Joeri Rogelj & Malte Meinshausen & Reto Knutti, 2012. "Global warming under old and new scenarios using IPCC climate sensitivity range estimates," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(4), pages 248-253, April.
    6. Phillis, Yannis A. & Andriantiatsaholiniaina, Luc A., 2001. "Sustainability: an ill-defined concept and its assessment using fuzzy logic," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 435-456, June.
    7. Francisco Alejandro Moreno & Sudeshna Ghosh Banerjee & Jonathan Sinton & Tanya Primiani & Joonkyung Seong, "undated". "Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy," World Bank Publications - Reports 26099, The World Bank Group.
    8. -, 1997. "Energy and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean: approaches to energy policy," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 30858, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    9. Haris Doukas, 2013. "Linguistic multicriteria decision making for energy systems: building the ‘RE 2 S’ framework," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(5), pages 571-585, September.
    10. Heffron, Raphael J. & McCauley, Darren & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2015. "Resolving society's energy trilemma through the Energy Justice Metric," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 168-176.
    11. Yannis A. Phillis & Nektarios Chairetis & Evangelos Grigoroudis & Fotis D. Kanellos & Vassilis S. Kouikoglou, 2018. "Climate security assessment of countries," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 25-43, May.
    12. Phillis, Yannis A. & Grigoroudis, Evangelos & Kouikoglou, Vassilis S., 2011. "Sustainability ranking and improvement of countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 542-553, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Venugopal Prabhakar Gantasala & Swapna Bhargavi Gantasala & Trinh La, 2022. "Influence of motivation on achieving energy sustainability: mediating effects of decision-making," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 626-636, December.
    2. Georgios Tsantopoulos & Evangelia Karasmanaki, 2021. "Energy Transition and Climate Change in Decision-Making Processes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-3, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Berjawi, A.E.H. & Walker, S.L. & Patsios, C. & Hosseini, S.H.R., 2021. "An evaluation framework for future integrated energy systems: A whole energy systems approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Pin Li & Jinsuo Zhang, 2019. "Is China’s Energy Supply Sustainable? New Research Model Based on the Exponential Smoothing and GM(1,1) Methods," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Zhou, Dequn & Chen, Ting & Ding, Hao & Wang, Qunwei, 2024. "Tracking the provincial energy transition in China: A comprehensive index," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    4. Gunnarsdottir, I. & Davidsdottir, B. & Worrell, E. & Sigurgeirsdottir, S., 2020. "Review of indicators for sustainable energy development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Genave, Anna & Blancard, Stéphane & Garabedian, Sabine, 2020. "An assessment of energy vulnerability in Small Island Developing States," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Andrew Chapman & Timothy Fraser & Melanie Dennis, 2019. "Investigating Ties between Energy Policy and Social Equity Research: A Citation Network Analysis," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-18, April.
    7. Drago, Carlo & Gatto, Andrea, 2022. "Policy, regulation effectiveness, and sustainability in the energy sector: A worldwide interval-based composite indicator," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    8. Gunnarsdottir, I. & Davidsdottir, B. & Worrell, E. & Sigurgeirsdottir, S., 2022. "Indicators for sustainable energy development: An Icelandic case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    9. Evgeny Lisin & Wadim Strielkowski & Veronika Chernova & Alena Fomina, 2018. "Assessment of the Territorial Energy Security in the Context of Energy Systems Integration," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-14, November.
    10. Le Thanh Tiep & Ngo Quang Huan & Tran Thi Thuy Hong, 2020. "The Impact of Renewable Energy on Sustainable Economic Growth in Vietnam," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 359-369.
    11. Zhu, Bo & Deng, Yuanyue & Hu, Xin, 2023. "Global energy security: Do internal and external risk spillovers matter? A multilayer network method," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Sandu, Suwin & Yang, Muyi & Phoumin, Han & Aghdam, Reza Fathollahzadeh & Shi, Xunpeng, 2021. "Assessment of accessible, clean and efficient energy systems: A statistical analysis of composite energy performance indices," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    13. Carbajo, Ruth & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2018. "Renewable energy research and technologies through responsible research and innovation looking glass: Reflexions, theoretical approaches and contemporary discourses," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 792-808.
    14. Fausto Cavallaro, 2015. "A Takagi-Sugeno Fuzzy Inference System for Developing a Sustainability Index of Biomass," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-13, September.
    15. Kang, Duan, 2024. "The establishment of evaluation systems and an index for energy superpower," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 356(C).
    16. Ye, Ruike & Zhou, Yunheng & Chen, Jiawei & Tu, Kevin, 2021. "Natural gas security evaluation from a supply vs. demand perspective: A quantitative application of four As," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    17. Gasser, Patrick, 2020. "A review on energy security indices to compare country performances," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    18. Zhang, Long & Bai, Wuliyasu & Xiao, Huijuan & Ren, Jingzheng, 2021. "Measuring and improving regional energy security: A methodological framework based on both quantitative and qualitative analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    19. Mehrbakhsh Nilashi & Fausto Cavallaro & Abbas Mardani & Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas & Sarminah Samad & Othman Ibrahim, 2018. "Measuring Country Sustainability Performance Using Ensembles of Neuro-Fuzzy Technique," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-20, August.
    20. Maulidia, Martha & Dargusch, Paul & Ashworth, Peta & Ardiansyah, Fitrian, 2019. "Rethinking renewable energy targets and electricity sector reform in Indonesia: A private sector perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 231-247.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:operea:v:21:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s12351-019-00492-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.