Proposal for a combined methodology for renewable energy planning. Application to a Spanish region

The article here presented aims to contribute to renewable energies development at regional level, proposing a methodology for the establishment of strategies needed to reach, in the long term, an energy system more sustainable and mainly based upon autochthonous resources.Current energy planning models are investigated, analysing its convenience to design a sustainable energy system, and a new methodology, that combines three different approaches, is proposed. Such new “hybrid” methodology resumes advantages of territorial strategic planning methods, based upon SWOT analysis, along with characteristics extracted both from Multicriteria decision analysis techniques and expert opinion “Delphi” methods.Nowadays, decisions concerning energy system cannot be consider under one specific criterion. Different implications, energetic, environmental or socioeconomic, derived from changes on energy development make it unavoidable to use tools and techniques that could take into account such multiplicity. It has been also intended to take advantage of the know-how acquired along the territorial strategic planning process carried out in the region to analyse, from year 1997 to 2000. This approach has allowed to integrate, under a unique methodology, tools from energy planning with those one used, and successfully tested, for the elaboration of the strategic plan for Jaén Province.The proposed methodology has been applied to Jaén Province in order to design a renewable energy plan for the region, setting strategic action lines and fixing strategic goals to be met on year 2010 by the provincial energy system. The objective regarding electricity production from renewable resources, on year 2010, is fixed above 1630 GWh, which represents a 43% of the total foreseeable electricity consumption. Overall contribution of renewable sources in provincial energy system is finally set to 28.3%, in terms of final energy.