The current financial and economic crisis, as well as wider socio-economic and environmental pressures, put seriously into question the traditional patterns of living, consuming and sharing resources. These pressures create high expectations for coordinated actions and holistic interventions to address comprehensively the problems of modern society and competitive economy. In particular, with regard to energy and environment issues, integrated approaches and methodological frameworks are the key challenge for policy and decision-makers in order to embark them on strategies toward sustainable development (SD) and scientifically optimise energy concepts for the future.
Indeed, climate change and the increasing complexity of the energy sector along with the prerequisite for sustainability have broadened the energy policy-shaping field by bringing about new challenges.
Researchers and practitioners have responded to the above-mentioned challenges with the development and application of new energy and environmental modelling methods, with the emphasis placed on the use of modern operational research/management science (OR/MS) techniques for assessing energy, environment and sustainability.
Decision support methods and systems have a key role in this respect, in the pursuit of appropriate approaches necessary to support the restructuring of the energy sector, concerning patterns of energy extraction, generation, transformation and use, from unsustainable to sustainable forms of development. Moreover, multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods can be an important tool for decision support towards sustainable energy and environmental systems, providing the flexibility and capacity to assess implications for economical, environmental, technological and social frameworks.
This special issue aims to foster related discussion on and the exchange of experience in decision support towards the energy sector’s sustainable development.
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Decision support for the deployment and diffusion of low-carbon technologies
- MCDM models and methods assessing policy options' implications for economical, environmental, technological and social frameworks
- Analysis of energy and environmental policies' economic impacts, especially under the current financial crisis
- Computational models to deal with the energy sector's related uncertainties
- Computerised software design, development and testing for sustainable energy and environmental systems
- Decision support strategies toward sustainable energy technology transfer
- MCDM frameworks for policy options' evaluations (e.g. such as scenarios, technologies, operational plans), as well as assessment of socio-economic and environmental pressures
- Real-life applications to provide empirically solid foundations for energy and environmental systems' analysis
- Case studies and comparative analyses
Important Dates
Deadline for full paper submission: 30 March, 2014
Notice of acceptation/rejection: 31 May, 2014
Revised paper submission: 15 July, 2014
Final decision: 31 August, 2014
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