A MULTI-CRITERIA APPROACH TO LOCAL ENERGY PLANNING - The Case of Barreiro Municipality

Energy planning is at the top priorities of local authorities nowadays. Problems such as the depletion of natural resources, the wellbeing of human population and the security of energy supply have became the main drivers to change the current fossil fuel-based energy paradigm. In order to put into practice energy planning processes at the local level, there is a need to provide support methods and tools to local authorities. In this paper we present a decision support methodology for sustainable local energy planning that combines energy modelling and multi-criteria evaluation techniques. The focus of the paper is on the building process of a multi-criteria evaluation model for the municipality of Barreiro, in Portugal. The municipality case revealed that multi-criteria evaluation is a suitable tool for local energy planning.