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a b s t r a c tResource optimization is a major factor in the assessment of the effectiveness of renewable energy systems. Various methods have been utilized by different researchers in planning and sizing the gridconnected PV systems. This paper analyzes the optimal photovoltaic (PV) array and inverter sizes for a grid-connected PV system. Unmet load, excess electricity, fraction of renewable electricity, net present cost (NPC) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions percentage are considered in order to obtain optimal sizing of the grid-connected PV system. An optimum result, with unmet load and excess electricity of 0%, for serving electricity in Makkah, Saudi Arabia is achieved with the PV inverter size ratio of R ¼ 1 with minimized CO 2 emissions. However, inverter size can be downsized to 68% of the PV nominal power to reduce the inverter cost, and hence decrease the total NPC of the system.

Sustainable development objectives surrounding water and energy systems are increasingly interdependent, and yet the associated performance metrics are often distinct. Regional planners tasked with designing future supply systems therefore require multi-criteria analysis methods and tools to determine a suitable combination of technologies and scale of investments. Previous research focused on optimizing system development strategy with respect to a single design objective, leading to potentially negative outcomes for other important sustainability metrics. This paper addresses this limitation, and presents a flexible and interactive multi-criteria model analysis framework and its application to long-term energy and freshwater supply planning at national or regional scales. The framework incorporates a linear systems-engineering model of the coupled supply technologies and inter-provincial electricity and water transmission networks. The multi-criteria analysis approach enables the interactive specification of diverse decision-making preferences for disparate criteria, and leads to learning on trade-o↵s between the resulting criteria values of the corresponding Pareto-optimal solutions. A case study of the water-stressed nation of Saudi Arabia explores preferences combining aspiration and reservation levels in terms of cost, water sustainability and CO 2 emissions. The analysis reveals a suite of trade-o↵ solutions, in which potential integrated system configurations remain relatively ambitious from both an economic and environmental perspective. The identified cost savings would have a major impact on the a↵ordability of water and electricity services in Saudi Arabia.