Abstract—Sustainable development is a key policy in European Union (EU). The main targets of EU energy policy are related with sustainable energy development goals. Therefore it is important to assess electricity generation technologies in terms of sustainability. The aim of this paper is to apply the multi–criteria decision support framework for sustainability assessment of the main electricity generation technologies in EU. The multi-criteria decision method MULTIMOORA was applied for the sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies. The multi-criteria analysis conducted in the paper provided that the future energy policy in EU should be oriented towards the sustainable energy technologies are water and solar thermal ones. Index Terms—Electricity generation technologies, multi-criteria analysis, sustainability assessment. I. INTRODUCTION The main EU policy documents and directives which have impact on sustainable energy development are directives promoting energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources, directives implementing greenhouse gas mitigation and atmospheric pollution reduction policies and other policy documents and strategies targeting energy sector. Promotion of use of renewable energy sources especially biomass and energy efficiency improvements are among priorities of EU energy policy because use of renewables and energy efficiency improvements has positive impact on energy security and climate change mitigation. The directives targeting energy efficiency, renewables and climate change mitigation indicates the EU energy policy priorities: reduction of energy impact on environment, improvements in energy generation and energy use efficiencies, increase in reliability and security of energy supply, promotion of renewables use and climate change mitigation. All these directives have specific targets which can be addressed by quantitative indicators. As targets set by specific directives are related the use of interlinked indicators framework to address these targets can be useful tool for energy policy analysis and monitoring. Such tool applied by EU member states can help to harmonize EU energy policies and enhance its implementation on country level [1], [2]. New energy technologies can be considered to be an important bridge between the Europe 2020 objectives and the Manuscript received December 8, 2013; revised February 13, 2013. R. Dapkus is with the Regional Development Department at Kaunas University of Technology, K. Donelaicio str. 20, Kaunas, LT- 44239, Lithuania (e-mail: Rimantas.Dapkus@gmail.com). D. Streimikiene is with the Vilnius university, Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Socio-cultural Center, Muitines str. 8, Kaunas, LT-44280, Lithuania (e-mail: dalia@mail.lei.lt). EU Sustainable development strategy adopted at the Goteborg European Council [3]. Indeed, the very selection of sustainable energy sources involves multiple conflicting objectives. It is therefore important to develop multi–criteria decision support frameworks for sustainable energy policy. Multi–criteria decision making (MCDM) methods are suitable to tackle energy source selection problem [1], [2], [4]-[10]. A number of the recent studies, therefore, dealt with application of MCDM in energy policy [11]-[22]. The aim of this paper is to apply the multi–criteria decision support framework for sustainability assessment of the main electricity generation technologies in EU. The main targets to achieve the aim of the paper are: to discusses the aims of EU sustainable energy policy goals and indicators; to review alternative electricity generation technologies as well as criteria for their ranking; to present MULTIMORA method applied for the sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies; to conduct sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies by applying MULTIMORA method based on the targets of EU sustainable energy policy. II. EU SUSTAINABLE ENERGY POLICY GOALS AND INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES The main EU policy documents and directives which have impact on sustainable energy development are directives promoting energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources, directives implementing greenhouse gas mitigation and atmospheric pollution reduction policies and other policy documents and strategies targeting energy sector. Promotion of use of renewable energy sources especially biomass and energy efficiency improvements are among priorities of EU energy policy because use of renewables and energy efficiency improvements has positive impact on energy security and climate change mitigation. The directives targeting energy efficiency, renewables and climate change mitigation indicates the EU energy policy priorities: reduction of energy impact on environment, improvements in energy generation and energy use efficiencies, increase in reliability and security of energy supply, promotion of renewables use and climate change mitigation. All these directives have specific targets which can be addressed by quantitative indicators. As targets set by specific directives are related the use of interlinked indicators framework to address these targets can be useful tool for energy policy analysis and monitoring. Such tool applied by EU member states can help to harmonize EU energy policies and enhance Sustainability of Electricity Generation Technologies in EU Rimantas Dapkus and Dalia Streimikiene International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, Vol. 3, No. 1, February 2013 DOI: 10.7763/IJEEEE.2013.V3.188 29