Comparative Analysis of Five Widely-Used Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods to Evaluate Clean Energy Technologies: A Case Study

Abstract

Over the last decade, the total primary energy consumption has increased from 479 × 1015 BTU in 2010 to 528 × 1015 BTU in 2020. To address this ever-increasing energy demand, as well as prevent environmental pollution, clean energies are presented as a potential solution. In this regard, evaluating and selecting the most appropriate clean energy solution for a specific area is of particular importance. Therefore, in this study, a comparative analysis in Jiangsu province in China was performed by describing and implementing five prominent multi-criteria decision-making methods in the field of energy technology selection, including SAW, TOPSIS, ELECTRE, VIKOR, and COPRAS. The decision problem here consists of four clean energy options, including solar photovoltaic, wind, nuclear, and biomass, which have been evaluated by twelve basic and important criteria for ranking clean energy options. The obtained results, according to all five MCDM methods, indicate that solar photovoltaic was the optimal option in this study, followed by wind energy. The nuclear and biomass options placed third and fourth, respectively, except in the ELECTRE method ranking, in which both options scored the same and thus neither was superior. Finally, by conducting a comprehensive two-stage sensitivity analysis, in the first stage, it was found that changes in the weights of land use and water consumption criteria had the greatest impact on the performance of options, among which biomass and nuclear showed high sensitivity to variations in criteria weights. In the second stage, by defining five scenarios, the ranking of options was evaluated from different aspects so that the decision maker/organization would be able to make appropriate decisions in different situations.

Comprehensive power quality performance assessment for electrical system of a nuclear research reactor

“…Also, the VIKOR method achieves a compromise ranking by comparing the closeness degree with the ideal solution. The key feature of VIKOR method is that it minimizes the individual regret and maximizes the group benefits and so that its result can be accepted by decision-makers 26 . These two methods will be clarified in detail on the following sections as CRITIC-VIKOR can show results more realistic because of the differential weights assigned to criteria by the CRITIC method 24 .…”

“…Finally, the performance index Pi of each alternative (sample) can be obtained, and depending on Pi values a ranking for alternatives is obtained as shown in Table 12 26 .…”

Assessment of Whole Milk Powder Production by a Cumulative Exergy Consumption Approach

“…The use of renewable energy sources instead of fossil-based renewable energy sources in production processes makes production processes more sustainable. The inclusion of renewable energy sources in production processes makes the production process more environmentally friendly [58][59][60][61]. With the use of renewable energy, the CNEx value in the raw milk production process was reduced by 24.9%, whereas the CNEx value in powder production decreased by 66.8% (Figure 5).…”

Methods of Multi-Criteria Analysis in Technology Selection and Technology Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The group of ELECTRE methods is based on the rule of pairwise comparisons. The method employs the concordance and discordance of the criteria and the threshold values to evaluate the scoring schemes between the available alternatives (Effatpanah et al, 2022). PRO-METHEE belongs to the family of multi-criteria outranking methods based on the dominance relationship principles and a generalisation of the criterion notion (Brans et al, 1984).…”