An ex post criticism, based on stakeholders’ preferences, of a residential sector’s energy master plan: the case study of the Sicilian region

Energy master plans are important tools for an effective and sustainable land governance. On the other hand, the stakeholder role in setting priorities for planning energy interventions is dramatically increasing, also in the light of recently issued European directives. The priorities of energy-saving measures of the Sicilian energy and environmental master plan were originally established with the application of typical economic indicators (the cost of saved energy and the cost of avoided pollutant emissions). During the prioritization process, there was a minor contribution from stakeholders who were not directly involved in the priority-setting process but were only asked to express their opinions according to the in-force regulations. Based on more active stakeholder involvement in hierarchizing a given set of actions, as required by the recently issued directives, the University of Palermo, which participated in the development of this master plan, assessed an ex post evaluation of these established economy-based priorities, by means of the application of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool. The resulting changed priorities, which lead to a better policy allocation of the regional budget for energy efficiency in the building sector, confirm the preeminent role played by the stakeholders in the development of energy plans, further supported by a sensitivity analysis.