  Multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been used to provide a holistic
evaluation of the quality of 13 electricity generation technologies in use
today. A group of 19 energy experts cast scores on a scale of 1 to 10 using 12
quality criteria, based around the pillars of sustainability (society,
environment and economy), with the aim of quantifying each criterion for each
technology. The total mean score is employed as a holistic measure of system
quality. The top three technologies to emerge in rank order are nuclear,
combined cycle gas and hydroelectric. The bottom three are solar PV, biomass
and tidal lagoon. All seven new renewable technologies fared badly, perceived
to be expensive, unreliable, and not as environmentally friendly as is often
assumed. We validate our approach by 1) comparing scores for pairs of criteria
where we expect a correlation to exist; 2) comparing our qualitative scores
with quantitative data; and; 3) comparing our qualitative scores with NEEDS
project baseline costs. In many cases, R2>0.8 suggests that the structured
hierarchy of our approach has led to scores that may be used in a
semi-quantitative way. Adopting the results of this survey would lead to a very
different set of energy policy priorities in the OECD and throughout the world.
