Sustainability assessment of energy production: A critical review of methods, measures and issues

Sustainable operations of energy production systems have become an increasingly important policy agenda globally because of the massive pressure placed on energy resources needed to support economic development and population growth. Due to the increasing research interest in examining the operational impacts of energy production systems on the society and the environment, this paper critically reviews the academic literature on the clean, affordable and secure supply of energy focussing on methods of assessments, measures of sustainability and emerging issues in the literature. While there have been some surveys on the sustainability of energy production systems they have either tended to focus on one assessment approach or one type of energy generation technology. This study builds on previous studies by providing a broader and comprehensive examination of the literature across generation technologies and assessment methods. A systematic review of 128 scholarly articles covering a 20-year period, ending 2018, and gathered from ProQuest, Scopus, and manual search is conducted. Synthesis and critical evaluation of the reviewed papers highlight a number of research gaps that exist within the sustainable energy production systems research domain. In addition, using mapping and cluster analyses, the paper visually highlights the network of dominant research issues, which emerged from the review. •Sustainable energy production assessment research is growing.•A systematic review of 128 scholarly articles is conducted.•Major themes include environmental impact, assessment approaches and energy policy.•Most evaluation approaches allow compensation between sustainability dimensions.•Little evidence of systems thinking outside lifecycle assessment.