Decision Support System for Sustainability Assessment of Power Generation Technologies - Efficient Decision Support Systems: Practice and Challenges from Current to Future - page 520

thorough analysis of political and legal environment, because the energy sector is subject to
strict legal regulation. The activities are regulated by EU and national legal acts. Recently,
EU member states started harmonisation of these legal acts and their transfer into national
legislative bases. This process simplifies the analysis of legal environment. The aspect of the
environment protection is equally important. The PESTEL analysis of the environment
includes quantitative (extrapolation, mathematical modelling, etc.) and qualitative
(scenarios, Delphi, etc.) forecasting methods. The main factors for PESTEL analysis in the
energy sector are shown in Table 1.

Factor Components

Political EU enlargement, tax (excise) policies, agreements on development
strategies, etc.
Economic national income, inflation, unemployment, industrial development, etc.
Social demographic features, emigration, income distribution and levels of
consumption, supply of skilled professionals, the culture of industrial
relations, etc.
Technological innovations, development of new products, speed of technology
updates, dissemination of technical know-how, etc.
Environmental global warming, pollution reduction and environment protection
Legal laws that promote competitiveness in the sector, healthcare and labour
laws, etc.
Table 1. The main factors for PESTEL analysis in the energy sector
Mesoenvironment Factors. The analysis of mesolevel environment is oriented towards the
goals of a specific sector, its role in the national economy and the industry, the features
which shape the type of activities, profit, processes within a specific industry, the impact of
the processes on environment, fulfilment of the sector's social role, documents regulating
specific activities and relations with national authorities. It is an intermediate level between
microeconomics and macroeconomics (Pillet et al., 2005). The analysis of mesoenvironment
aims to look into the relation between the environment of the object in question and the
economics. This environment is analysed considering such factors as institutions involved in
legislation of a variety of legal and normative acts at various levels, in supervision and in
control. A direct relationship links the decisions made by such institutions and the legal acts
which regulate corporate activities with corporate plans, and decisions. Indicators that look
into the ability of a specific object to achieve its economic goals in a specific legal
environment and to handle the environmental issues through resource-saving
manufacturing tools and increasing use of renewable energy sources are significant in the
analysis of mesolevel factors. It is at the mesolevel that the environmental dimension, and
the external effect (effect of by-products and pollution on the environment) of activities, is
analysed in the energy sector or in separate energy production technologies. An important
aspect of this level is public participation in issues related to the quality of living and work
environment. Another important aspect, though rarely considered, is social responsibility of
energy companies. This aspect must be considered not only in the analysis of specific
corporate activities, but also when drafting strategies, selecting development scenarios and
technologies, because the activities in the energy sector are important not only from the
economic perspective, but also when dealing with a range issues relevant to the public—