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Decision Support System for Sustainability
Assessment of Power Generation Technologies
Jūratė Šliogerienė
1
, Dalia Štreimikienė
2
and Artūras Kaklauskas
1
1
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, LT-10223 Vilnius
2
Lithuanian Energy Institute, LT-44403 Kaunas
Lithuania
1. Introduction
The necessity to achieve sustainable economic development, which would be environment-
friendly, would conserve natural resources and would not contribute to social tensions, is
increasingly the key attitude in development strategies and plans for a range of economic
activities, and in search for the best solutions. Sustainable development is understood as a
lasting ideology of social change—as a compromise, which reconciles environmental,
economic and social goals of our society. In the context of sustainable development, the
energy development—the ability to ensure sufficient energy sources to the public—is of
particular importance. Sustainable energy development is a complete set of measures,
including better performance of energy production and consumption, gradually decreasing
consumption of fossil fuels, lower pollution, introduction of renewable energy sources and
advanced energy technologies, ensuring socially just pricing and accessible energy. The
future of energy must go hand in hand with the concept of sustainable development and
must ensure economic development of the public. Lately, many European countries face the
issues of growing energy demand, and the consequences of global warming, ever-higher
import dependency, also high and fluctuating prices of resources and energy. These issues
lead to revisions of development projects and social programmes in the energy sector, and
encourage adoption of instruments able to reduce social tensions, to satisfy the demand and
to improve social safety.
The EU energy policy is a means to ensure secure, competitive and sustainable energy. The
document
Green Paper: A European Strategy for sustainable, competitive and secure energy
published by the European Commission on 8 March 2006 sets forth the key areas with
specific energy development challenges. This document prescribes the axes for energy
development, and contribution to economic growth and job creation in Europe. It also
names the challenges to secure safe energy supply in the internal market, as well as the
solidarity of member states, promotion of competitiveness, increasingly efficient and diverse
energy, and innovation (Commission of the European...2006). Building of relevant strategies
and development plans, selection of specific instruments in line with environmental
conditions are among the priorities in each state.
Development based on the sustainability principles, as well as planning, building and
validation of various strategic decisions, demands for analysis and assessment of versatile
information, such as EU policies and guidelines; political, social, economic and
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