Economic, Environmental, and Social Impacts of Renewable Energies: What have We Learned by Now?

¹ DEGEIT, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal
² CESAM & Department of Environment & Planning, Aveiro University (DAO-UA), Portugal
³ DEGEIT & GOVCOPP, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal
⁴ Centre for Power and Energy Systems, INESC TEC, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Abstract

Renewable energy is an essential driver of the energy transition towards a more sustainable world. However, sustainability requires the coordination of the economic, environmental, and social dimensions, turning it into a complex objective. The aim of this study is to review the state of the art of the articles that analyze economic, environmental, and social metrics that can be used to evaluate the impact of renewable. In addition, this work also classifies metrics into two main approaches: macro-studies, corresponding to those that evaluate based on global and aggregated impacts, and micro-studies, corresponding to those that focus on regional and local impacts. A systematic literature review was used to identify and define these main metrics, based on common research databases. Seven metrics were found and described for the environmental impact, four for the economic impact and five for the social impact. The main finding revealed that micro-studies are more prevalent in comparison to macro-studies. Moreover, the systematic literature review allows achieving the objective and highlighting the proposed sustainability assessment framework as crucial for gauging and evaluating impact metrics across the economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The difficulty in isolating and measuring each metric may be attributed to the challenges involved in studying the corresponding impact, whether at the micro or macro level. More targeted studies can help in a more efficient energy transition.