After successful completion of the module students should be able to:

·         understand fundamental concepts shaping different sustainability definitions and discourses

·         get to know main methods for sustainability assessment of renewable energy systems and
         understand their principles, application areas and blackspots

·         understand, critically appraise and compare the principles and implications of selected
          scientific methods and theories for a sustainable energy supply

·         critically evaluate the suitability and meaningfulness of different sustainability indicators,
          theories, methods and practices regarding their role and impact for developed countries, on
          the one hand, and developing countries, on the other

·         perform an integral assessment, involving one of the discussed assessment methods on a
         particular renewable energy project as well as identify the main barriers, potentials and
         driving factors for improving it

·         perform a literature review on selected sustainability approaches to a professional standard
          and extract the main related conclusions, and arguing critically on them

.         present data and information both verbally and in the written form, including quotation to a
          professional standard

The module “Sustainability of RE Systems” provides the theoretical background for understanding main concepts and interdisciplinary scientific methods from the context as well as their role in the sustainability debate.

Sustainability of RE (Lecture & Seminar; 180 h workload)

·         Strategies and dimensions in sustainability research and discussion:
          efficiency, consistency and sufficiency, as well as related concepts (e.g. rebound effect and    
         decoupling)

·         Growth/De-growth and (absolute and relative) decoupling of growth and GHG emissions

·         Life-cycle analysis

·         Energy scenarios: techno-economic and system dynamic approaches

·         Discourse analysis

·         Multi-criteria decision making methods

·         Social indicators and their relation to energy use

.         Economic indicators and related paradigms in the context of energy

reviews, 69 (2017), pp. 596-609.