Energy management under policy and technology uncertainty Steven M. Tylock a,n , Thomas P. Seager b , Jeff Snell c , Erin R. Bennett c , Don Sweet a a Sustainable Intelligence, c/o Adair Law Firm, 290 Linden Oaks, Suite 220, Rochester, NY 14625, USA b School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 875306, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA c Bioengineering Group, 18 Commercial Street, Salem, MA 01970, USA HIGHLIGHTS c Incorporate disparate criteria with uncertain performance. c Analyze decisions with contrasting stakeholder positions. c Interactively compare alternatives based on uncertain weighting. c User friendly multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT article info Article history: Received 30 September 2011 Accepted 23 April 2012 Available online 19 May 2012 Keywords: MCDA Uncertainty Stakeholders abstract Energy managers in public agencies are subject to multiple and sometimes conflicting policy objectives regarding cost, environmental, and security concerns associated with alternative energy technologies. Making infrastructure investment decisions requires balancing different distributions of risks and benefits that are far from clear. For example, managers at permanent Army installations must incorporate Congressional legislative objectives, executive orders, Department of Defense directives, state laws and regulations, local restrictions, and multiple stakeholder concerns when undertaking new energy initiatives. Moreover, uncertainty with regard to alternative energy technologies is typically much greater than that associated with traditional technologies, both because the technologies themselves are continuously evolving and because the intermittent nature of many renewable technologies makes a certain level of uncertainty irreducible. This paper describes a novel stochastic multi-attribute analytic approach that allows users to explore different priorities or weighting schemes in combination with uncertainties related to technology performance. To illustrate the utility of this approach for understanding conflicting policy or stakeholder perspectives, prioritizing the need for more information, and making investment decisions, we apply this approach to an energy technology decision problem representative of a permanent military base. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Energy and facilities managers on permanent military installations are confronted with a host of challenges and competing priorities as they endeavor to make their bases more energy efficient and comply with new energy and emissions regulations. New federal laws and related Department of Defense (DoD) policy directives present a Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol Energy Policy 0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.04.040 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 585 370 4632. E-mail address: steven.tylock@sustainableintelligence.net (S.M. Tylock). Energy Policy 47 (2012) 156–163