Sustainable Development of Renewable Energies: Ranking Methods for Sustainability Indicators and Key Renewable Electricity Sources and Challenges in the MENA Region

The concept of sustainable development is therefore designed to correct the shortcomings of the dominant development paradigm, whose only main criterion is economic growth. Its concern is to integrate the social and environmental dimensions into the development process in order to mitigate the social and ecological imbalances generated by the liberal and even socialist economic model. For the energy sector to be truly economically important, it must be based on its on-demand production capacity. Electricity is, therefore, an energy source that is not storable. Supply and demand must be balanced. The energy return time corresponds to the time necessary for the energy reimbursement of the construction of the plant concerned. Contrary to what we may think, this criterion has been classified as a social and non-environmental criterion, because the use of energy resources to build the infrastructure necessary to produce electricity is directly in competition with energy consumption. The cost of producing renewable electricity seems like a logical explanation. Despite the significant decline in wind and solar electricity generation costs in recent years, hydropower remains the cheapest of renewable electricity. Finally, we focused on the objectives and opportunities of the Mediterranean Solar Plan, focusing on these renewable electricity development strategies. Starting from the principle of renewable electricity production, the following chapter will address the concept of the energy transition by studying the principle of the green economy.