The task of risk-oriented management of the electric power system in conditions of multi-criteria choice is considered. To determine the most effective measures, the implementation of which will reduce the magnitude of the risk of an emergency situation, multi-criteria analysis methods are applied. A comparative analysis of the multi-criteria alternative (ELECTRE) ranking method based on utility theory and the Pareto method, which defines a subset of non-dominant alternatives, is carried out. The Pareto method uses in its algorithm only qualitative characteristics of the advantage and allows only to distinguish a group of competitive solutions with the same degrees of non-dominance. Given the large number of evaluation criteria, the Pareto method is ineffective because the resulting subset of activities is in the field of effective trade-offs, when no element of the set of measures can be improved without degrading at least one of the other elements. The ELECTRE method is a pairwise comparison of multi-criteria alternatives based on utility theory. This method allows to identify a subset of the most effective activities. The number of elements of the resultant subset is regulated by taking into account the coefficients of importance of optimization criteria and expert preferences.