AHP-Assisted Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model for Planning of Microgrids

Abstract

The planning stage of any project, could it be for an industry, a commercial or energy supply system, has crucial significance and involves judicious contribution from field experts to decision makers (DM). The objective of this paper is presenting a model for planning of energy sources for microgrid using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) based on analytic hierarchic process (AHP) approach. For developing a model, an educational institution's electrical energy load demand has been considered as reference. In this assessment, the main-utility grid as the primary source of electricity, alongside conventional sources like diesel generator (DG), gasbased combined heat-and-power (CHP) with absorption chiller to meet cooling demand of facility is taken into account. Moreover, proven and comparatively most environmentally friendly renewable energy sources, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) together with battery energy storage system (BESS) have been taken into account. Moreover, the assessment and evaluation for prioritization of energy sources based on critical criteria or attributes and their associated sub-criteria have been judged to make decision. In this model, most of the critically influencing criteria, such as economic, technical, structural, operational and maintenance, environmental and societal aspects are being focused on. In total, nine alternativescombinations of grid and other energy source(s)-are identified to form the microgrid. The weight score for each combination of sources is computed for each of the 22 criteria and could be presented DMs to enlist priority of alternatives to choose from.

Techno-Economic Planning and Operation of the Microgrid Considering Real-Time Pricing Demand Response Program

“…The results indicated the importance of ESS utilization in the system architecture, which reduces the dumped energy to a satisfying value. A similar method was introduced in [73] for an educational institute. Therefore, they performed planning of the MG's energy resources using multi-criteria decision-making based on the AHP approach.…”

Multi-criteria planning of microgrids for rural electrification

“…A set of simulations have been run to decide the most optimized system architecture based on CoE offered. In a later part of analysis, a comprehensive list of criteria has been gathered [47,48] as depicted in Figure 2. Mainly five criteria such as economic, operational, structural, technical, and others as well as associated sub-criteria have been identified.…”

“…After getting a pair-wise comparison matrix of primary criteria, this information is fed into a computing device wherein pair-wise comparison for sub-criteria of each primary criterion is done based on quantitative values either obtained from HOMER Pro or from the methodology described by Bohra et al [48] . The detailed specifications from manufacturer of the components have been used to achieve realistic results.…”

A comprehensive review on applications of multicriteria decision‐making methods in power and energy systems

“…The planning of these microgrids also involves use of MCDM methods to identify and rank components of amalgamated resources. [93][94][95] Evans et al 89 has suggested sustainability parameters to evaluate renewable energy technologies. The parameters they have considered are generated electricity price, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for entire life-span of the technology being adopted, utilization of renewable sources, efficiency of energy conversion, footprint, water consumption, and social influence.…”

“…The microgrid is typically integrated with various types of distributed resources, which facilitate improving energy efficiency and relieving the undesirable influence on power grid. An optimized combination of source selection has been explained by Bohra et al 93 using AHP-based MCDM technique for microgrid planning (Table 1). An extensive and detailed analysis was conducted to rank blend of alternatives for grid-interactive microgrid system.…”