Renewable Energy Problems: Exploring the Methods to Support the Decision-Making Process

Abstract

In the current scenario of increasing energy demand and encouraging sustainable development in countries, the energy sector’s planning has become more complex, involving multiple factors, such as technical, economic, environmental, social, and political. The decision process plays a vital role in structuring and evaluating complex decision situations related to the sector, considering various criteria and objectives, encouraging adopting policies to promote energy efficiency actions by increasing research on renewable energy sources and strategic energy decisions. The high number of multi-criteria decision support methods (MCDM) available and their efficiency in solving highly complex problems results in an impasse with their selection and application in specific decision situations. Thus, the scientific community requires methodological approaches that help the decision-maker select the method consistent with his problem. Accordingly, this paper conducts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of renewable energy problems associated with MCDM methods based on a final set of 163 articles. We identified five categories of problems solved by MCDM techniques: Source selection, location, sustainability, project performance, and technological performance. We separate the MCDM process into five evaluation steps (alternative selection, criteria selection, criteria weighting, evaluation of alternatives, and post-assessment analyzes), and we extract the methods used in each MCDM step from papers. This paper’s main contribution is identifying the most common MCDM methods in the renewable energy area and the energy problem they solve. Accordingly, this manuscript helps energy decision-makers, entrepreneurs, investors, and policy-makers to improve their ability to choose the proper MCDM methods to solve energy problems.