Requirements for a project evaluation and selection methodology

The evaluation and selection of projects is usually referred as critical for the sustainability of the competiveness of organizations, but also as a complex process. If, on one hand, a formal and structured selection process may contribute to the clear communication of objectives and transparency, on the other hand, it may be shrouded with incomplete information and uncertainty about the real potential contribution of projects. The design and development of project selection methodologies should inevitably take into consideration organizational characteristics and constraints. Literature has provided various contributions to this topic, however, their emphasis have been on one or few requirements. This paper presents a review of the requirements for developing and implementing a project evaluation and selection methodology in organizations. This overview can support managers in fine tuning project selection practices in organizations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An integrated framework to support sustainable electricity planning

The changes in the electricity sector along with the need for sustainable development required traditional electricity planning to expand beyond pure financial analysis and even beyond direct environmental impact analysis. The electricity planner has now the task of designing electricity strategies for the future with the view of enhancing the financial performance of the sector while simultaneously addressing environmental and social concerns. However, the integration of the relevant dimensions of sustainable electricity planning poses important challenges to researchers. In addition, to properly deal with the increasing use of renewable energy sources of variable output, traditional optimisation models must be able to integrate the short term operational planning and dispatching process with the long range planning models. This paper proposes a new framework to sustainable electricity planning, based on optimisation models for electricity power planning combined with participatory methodologies for addressing the social dimension of the problem. The effective implementation of this framework is demonstrated for a real case study based on the Portuguese electricity system. The research started from the presentation of electricity generation scenarios for 2020 drawn from a mixed integer linear optimization model. These scenarios were then characterized under different social, economic and environmental impacts, and evaluated according to a multicriteria procedure based on experts’ inputs.This work was financed by: the QREN – Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors –the EU – European Regional Development Fund and National Funds – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-011377 and Project Pest- OE/EME/UI0252/2011

Improving and embedding project management practice: Generic or context dependent?

Taking into account the contingency theory, this paper explores the extent to which key project management improvement initiatives and key embedding factors, identified in a previously developed conceptual framework, are dependent on organizational context, namely sector of activity, organization size, geographic area and project types. Therefore, aiming to guide professionals on making use of such framework in their organizations. Statistically significant contextual correlations were looked for in a worldwide sample of 793 questionnaire responses from project management professionals, using Principal Component Analysis, ANOVA test and post-hoc Tukey test. Context related differences found were limited, suggesting that the framework for improving and embedding project management practice is substantially generic. Therefore, the paper shows the explanatory power of the framework, which can be used by any organization independent of its sector of activity, dimension, geographic area and project types, however indicating the existence of slight differences. For example, Information Technology companies might give more relevance to initiatives such as corporate standardization and tailoring of project management processes tools and techniques than Engineering and Construction companies.INCT-EN - Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia para Excitotoxicidade e Neuroproteção(SFRH/BPD/111033/2015

Liberalisation, consumption heterogeneity and the dynamics of energy prices

In this study, the methodology VAR and the cointegration analysis are used to examine the dynamic interaction among the energy prices of the competitor energy sources in a liberalised market. Data from the UK market were applied, and models for the residential and industrial sectors were developed. Our results indicate the existence of long-run relationships between the energy prices before and after the liberalisation, implying the possibility of substitution among the different forms of energy. However, the results appear to be also largely influenced by external variables not included in the models that may be reducing the importance of the energy prices over their own evolution and offsetting the basic substitution relationships. The general results of the Impulse Response Functions, both for the residential and industrial sectors, present low statistical significance, which seems to be due to the still slow rate of adjustment of the energy market to price changes, along with the immaturity of the liberalisation process. Taking into consideration the results, some routes for future research are pointed out, namely the need to include in the analysis variables which would proxy the general state of the economy

Evaluating future scenarios for the power generation sector using a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool : the Portuguese case

A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool was designed and used to support the evaluation of different electricity production scenarios. The MCDA tool is implemented in a user-friendly Excel worksheet and uses information obtained from a mixed integer optimization model, to produce a set of optimal schemes under different assumptions. Given the input, the MCDA allowed ranking different scenarios relying on their performance on 13 criteria covering economic, job market, quality of life of local populations, technical and environmental issues. The MCDA tool was used by a group of experts and academics with background in economics, engineering and environment. Regarding the totality of results, both the most and least expensive scenarios ranked first the same amount of times. These scenarios were, respectively, “Coal”, relying mainly in new coal power plants and “Maximum Renewable”, relying mainly in new wind and hydro power facilities. The opinions were divided towards these two solutions with different fundamental characteristics: “Maximum Renewable” with costs higher than “Coal” but leading to substantial reduction of the external energy dependency. Sensitivity analysis suggests that, although the costs are regarded as the most important criterion, those who had different rankings in their preferences have different attitudes towards other criteria.This work was financed by: the QREN Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, the European Union e European Regional Development Fund and National Funds e Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under Project FCOMP-01- 0124-FEDER-011377 and Project Pest-OE/EME/UI0252/2011

Wind power costs in Portugal

In a way to reduce the external energy dependence, increasing also the investments in renewable energy sources and aiming for the concretization of the European renewable objectives, the Portuguese government defined a goal of 5100 MW of installed wind power, up to 2012. If the drawn objectives are accomplished, by 2010 the wind power share may reach values comparable to leading countries like Denmark, Germany or Spain. The Portuguese forecasts also indicate a reinforcement of the natural gas fired generation in particular through the use of the combined cycle technology, following the European tendency. This analysis sets out to evaluate the total generating cost of wind power and CCGT in Portugal. A life cycle cost analysis was conducted, including investment costs, O&M costs, fuel costs and external costs of emissions, for each type of technology. For the evaluation of the externalities ExternE values were used. The results show that presently the wind power production cost is higher than the CCGT one, at least from the strictly financial point of view. CCGT costs increase significantly when charges for externalities are included. However, they only reach levels higher than the equivalents for wind power for high externality costs estimations. This partially results from the low load factor of the wind farms in Portugal and also from the lowemission levels of the gas fired technology used in the comparison. A sensitive analysis of the technical and economical parameters was also conducted. Particular attention was given to the natural gas prices due to the possible increase over time. The fuel escalation rate is the parameter that has larger effects on the final costs. It was verified that the total cost of wind plant is more influenced by the load factor than the total cost of CCGT

The impact of fuel and CO2 prices on electricity power plans

The increasing uncertainty surrounding the electricity generating sector has implications on the forecasting accuracy and makes sensitivity analysis an essential tool for electricity power planning. The fuel price volatility and the emissions trading schemes represent major sources of uncertainty, as the relative economic interest of thermo power plants and of renewable energy sources largely depends on these two factors. In this paper, an electricity planning model will be used to analyse both these aspects, identifying the relative importance and sensitiveness of the optimal electricity power plans to changes on these parameters.QREN – Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, European Union – European Regional Development Fund and Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology

Basic approximations to an adaptive resource allocation technique to stochastic multimodal projects

This paper presents three basic approximations developed to solve the Adaptive Stochastic Multimodal Resource Allocation Problem. Two of them are based on the DP model introduced in earlier papers ([23], [24]). The other one uses NLP to solve this problem. The approximations developed consist in considering the Work Content of some or all the activities of the project as represented by their mean values. These approximations were applied to a set of examples, and results were obtained and commented. As expected, running times were reduced, compared to the original model, but the total cost was underestimated, due to the use of means instead of the complete distribution

The inclusion of social aspects in power planning

This paper overviews previous research addressing the inclusion of the, social dimension of sustainable development on power systems planning. Consequences of the recent energy policies and strategies are already being felt in, developed countries’ power systems, with the integration of rising quotas in renewable, energy technologies. However, while the tools that aid decision making on power, planning show that economic and environmental issues are easily quantifiable and thus, modeled, social concerns have been addressed in a less extensive and more, subjective way, implying in most cases expert participation on multi-criteria decision aid, techniques. A survey of recent papers providing public perceptions on electricity, generation technologies and projects is presented. These papers were chosen and, reviewed in order to present a representative array of methodologies that are used to, assess social acceptance of technologies. According to some of the reviewed papers, this issue is suggested to be fundamental to increase project success. As a conclusion, stands the fact that further discussion is still needed in order to achieve solid, agreement, among experts, over what are the positive and the negative drivers to, social sustainability; otherwise models will not be able to translate reality and improve it, under this point of view.This work was financed by: the QREN – Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, the European Union – European Regional Development Fund and National Funds - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-011377 and Project Pest-OE/EME/UI0252/2011

Sustainability in small-medium-artisanal mining enterprises in Brazil

Small-Medium and Artisanal (SMA) companies from the mining sector have an important role on the regional development of the community and areas where they are located in Brazil. These companies should then be considered as drivers to disseminate and promote the principles of sustainability to their stakeholders. Nonetheless, these companies face many challenges on implementing good environmental practices, due to their characteristics, such as, operating under illegal situationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio