The measurement of sustainability is actively used today as one of the main preventative instruments in order to reduce the decline of the environment. Sustainable decision-making in solving energy issues can be supported and contradictory effects can be evaluated by scientific achievements of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. The main goal of this paper is to overview the application of decision-making methods in dealing with sustainable energy development issues. In this study, 105 published papers from the Web of Science Core Collection (WSCC) database are selected and reviewed, from 2004 to 2017, related to energy sustainability issues and MCDM methods. All the selected papers were categorized into 9 fields by the application area and into 10 fields by the used method. After the categorization of the scientific articles and detailed analysis, SWOT analysis of MCDM approaches in dealing with sustainable energy development issues is provided. The widespread application and use of MCDM methods confirm that MCDM methods can help decision-makers in solving energy sustainability problems and are highly popular and used in practice.

The European Union (EU) has set ambitious goals for climate change and energy in its pursued policies (20% of renewable energy until 2020, 27% until 2030, and the aim to become the global leader in energy produced by renewable energy sources). Even more ambitious goals are established in the strategy of Energy 2050. Today European energy policy is oriented towards energy security, expansion of energy markets, energy efficiency, decarbonisation, and scientific research and innovations. The broader aim of this policy is a radical shift away from the current energy system to introduce a new system which would ensure environmental consistency, affordability of consumer prices, and security of supply. The paper analyses the trends of energy development across the eight Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries. The analysis covers the period of 2008-2015. The main aim of the paper is to compare BSR countries achievements in sustainable energy development. The aggregate measures of energy sustainability are devised utilising multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) MULTIMOORA (Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis) technique. The paper presents an original framework for sustainable energy development indicators. The EU energy policy priorities govern the choice of indicators of energy sustainability. The comparative assessment of BSR countries, based on neutrosophic MULTIMOORA technique, by applying indicators from the framework, indicated that the best-performing countries regarding the achievement of EU sustainable energy development goals during the research period were Denmark and Latvia. The findings of this research can give useful information to energy policy decision makers.

The electricity production sector has a significant share of final energy consumption and has a huge potential to use more renewable energy sources. Over the last two decades, the European Union (EU) reform of electricity markets has had positive results, and market liberalization acts as a stimulus for energy efficiency, lower prices, and technological progress. Today’s EU policy for the development of electricity and the entire energy sector seeks to provide system modernization, stability, reinforcement of the single market, and implementation of climate change policy with an emphasis on the decarbonization of energy sources and the increase of energy efficiency. After all of the EU efforts to form an electricity sector in member states, it is necessary to assess the efficiency of the policy implemented and to identify the results achieved in shaping a sustainable electricity sector. The purpose of this article is to carry out a sustainability assessment of the electricity sector in the EU countries. A set of eight indicators designed to assess the sustainability of the electricity sector of different EU countries in 2017 has been drawn up. The assessment is made using the multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) Technique for Order Preference (TOPSIS). The assessment shows that the electricity market of Slovenia is the most sustainable, with Luxembourg in the second position in the EU.