Sustainability assessment of energy policies

Abstract

The main policies and measures aiming to achieve sustainable energy development targets implemented in Lithuania are: energy and pollution taxes, removal of subsidies on fossil fuels, emission trading scheme, feed-in prices for electricity produced from renewable and CHP (combined heat and power plants), subsidies to low carbon energy options including renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures, information and awareness. Regulations and standards are also available in housing sector, pollutants emission standards are implemented in power and heat generation sector etc. Most of these policies and measures though in some cases targeting specific goals have impact on other targets via the chain of mutual impacts. Therefore it is very important to assess the impacts of these policies on the main EU sustainable energy policy goals which can be simply expressed in the form of sustainable energy development indicators. All policies and measures implemented in Lithuanian energy sector will be assessed with regards of their impact on sustainable energy policy targets: increase of energy efficiency, use of renewable, use of CHP, security of supply, greenhouse gas and other atmospheric pollutants emission reduction. The quantitative evaluation or scoring of these policies and measures impact on sustainable energy development targets will be performed in the paper. This assessment would allow to rank and select the best policies and achieve sustainable energy development targets in harmonized and synergetic way.