Sustainable assessment in energy planning and management in Indian perspective Sunil Luthra a,n , Sachin Kumar Mangla b,1 , Ravinder K. Kharb c,2 a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Polytechnic, Jhajjar-124103, Haryana, India b Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee-247667, Uttarakhand, India c Department of Electronics Engineering, Government Polytechnic, Jhajjar-124103, Haryana, India article info Article history: Received 13 September 2014 Received in revised form 26 December 2014 Accepted 1 March 2015 Keywords: Indicators Sustainability assessment Energy planning and management Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) Sensitivity analysis India abstract Currently, energy systems are not fully sustainable due to the heavy power demands provoked by high population and increasing level of the living standard and economic growth. Hence, it requires significant efforts to conserve the resources and ensure the sustainability in energy demand and in its management from a nation perspective. The Indian economy is growing at a good pace and there is an enormous demand for resources and energy in the country. In this regard, this paper aims to identify and prioritize the indicators to develop a decision-support framework for the sustainability assessment in energy planning and management in Indian context. To achieve it, this work proposes to use a two- phase research methodology. In first phase, a comprehensive literature review and expert’s inputs are used to identify the important five key dimensions of indicators and twenty-five indicators for assessing the sustainability in energy planning and management. In second phase, fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used for prioritizing of indicators to develop an integrated sustainability assessment framework for energy systems. ‘Environmental’ indicator dimension has been reported as the most important dimension for assessing the sustainability in energy planning and management. The proposed decision framework may offer some valuable guidelines for policy makers to develop their plan of action in terms of design of both short term and long term flexible decision strategies, to assess the sustainability in energy systems. Sensitivity analysis has also been made to investigate the robustness and priority ranking stability of the proposed sustainability assessment framework. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction and background ........................................................................................... 59 1.1. Research gaps ................................................................................................. 60 1.2. Research objectives ............................................................................................. 60 2. Current status of energy scenario in India ................................................................................. 60 3. Literature review ..................................................................................................... 61 3.1. Current status of CO 2 emissions in India ............................................................................ 61 3.2. Sustainability assessment ........................................................................................ 61 4. Identification of indicators for assessing the sustainability in energy planning and management ..................................... 62 4.1. Economic indicators (Eco) ........................................................................................ 62 4.1.1. Payback period (Eco1) .................................................................................... 62 4.1.2. Economic effectiveness (Eco2) ............................................................................. 62 4.1.3. Savings on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Eco3) ............................................................ 62 4.1.4. Capital and energy levelized cost (Eco4) ..................................................................... 62 4.1.5. Investment opportunities (Eco5) ............................................................................ 62 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.03.007 1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 9466594853. E-mail addresses: sunilluthra1977@gmail.com (S. Luthra), sachinmangl@gmail.com (S.K. Mangla), kharb_ravinder@yahoo.co.in (R.K. Kharb). 1 Tel.: þ91 9458354826. 2 Tel.: þ91 9416312461. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 47 (2015) 58–73