Comparative Analysis of MCDM Methods for the Evaluation of Optimum Green Energy Sources

Abstract

The aim of this article is to select the optimum green energy sources for sustainable planning from a given set of energy alternatives. This study examines the combined behavior of multi-criteria decision-making approaches-TOPSIS, MOOSRA and COPRAS are used to evaluate the green energy sources–solar, hydro, biogas and biomass and to identify the optimum source by appraising its functioning features based on entropy probability technique. An illustrative case study is presented in order to demonstrate the application feasibility of the combined approaches for the ranking of optimum green energy sources. The analyzed results show that biogas is the optimum green energy source having the highest score value obtained by combined approaches. The sensitivity analysis shows the robustness of the combined approaches with the highest effectiveness. The study not only considers the various cost criteria but other actors like power generation, implementation period and useful life are also considered to select the optimum green energy sources for future project investment.