Table 1 Description of indicators and their quantification

From: Considering distributive justice as a planning principle helps navigate a diversity of future energy infrastructure designs

Impact

Description

Unit

The best-performing candidate design…

Theory of distributive justice: Equality

Cost

Investment cost per person

Total investment cost per person (€/person)

… minimises the sum of percent differences to equal cost per person.

Jobs

Jobs created per person

Total jobs per person (€/person)

… minimises the sum of percent differences to equal job creation per person.

Land use

Share of land capacity required to host energy technologies

Percent land use (km2 needed /km2 available)

… minimises the sum of percent differences to equal land use per person.

Theory of distributive justice: Equity

Cost

Investment cost per person

Total investment cost (€)

… maximises the ratio of investment in priority countries to investment in non-priority countries.

Jobs

Jobs created

Total jobs (FTE)

… minimises the sum of percent differences between the job creation per country and the fossil job distribution per country in 2022.

Land use

Share of land capacity required to host energy technologies

Percent land use (km2 needed /km2 available)

… minimises the sum of percent differences between land use per country and all the available land per country after considering additional protections required to meet land protection goals.

Theory of distributive justice: Utility

Cost

Total investment cost

Total investment cost (€)

… minimises investment cost.

Jobs

Total job creation

Total jobs (FTE)

… maximises job creation.

Land use

Total land use requirements

Total area (km2)

… minimises land use.

  1. The performance of candidate designs is assessed based on how well the design fulfils its goal, as tracked via a minimisation or maximisation (see right-most column). Job creation in full-time equivalent jobs (FTE) is calculated for six strategic technologies: solar PV, onshore wind, offshore wind, batteries, electrolysers, and heat pumps (Methods–Calculating system impacts)73. The priority countries for the Equity–Cost indicator are those with 90% or less of the GNI per person in the set of all countries considered in the analysis, as presented in the Cohesion Fund74. The land use protections considered for the Equity–Land indicator refer to the need to protect 30% of land mass, as stipulated by the European Union Biodiversity Strategy73