Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach for Selecting Wind Energy Power Plant Locations

Ateekh Ur Rehman, Mustufa Haider Abidi, Usama Umer and Yusuf Siraj Usmani
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Ateekh Ur Rehman: King Saud University, Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Riyadh-11421, Saudi Arabia
Mustufa Haider Abidi: King Saud University, Advanced Manufacturing Institute, Riyadh-11421, Saudi Arabia
Usama Umer: King Saud University, Advanced Manufacturing Institute, Riyadh-11421, Saudi Arabia
Yusuf Siraj Usmani: King Saud University, Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Riyadh-11421, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: In pursuit of green technology innovations, the energy industry is showing an interest in sustainable sources such as wind energy generation. The Saudi Arabian energy industry has a 2030 target to generate and transmit electricity to major customers nationwide and other neighboring Gulf countries. However, the selection of wind energy power plant locations is a concern because the decision process involves social, technological, economical, and environmental factors. The originality of this study lies in (1) proposing an integrated quantitative and qualitative multi-criteria decision making framework for selecting wind-energy power plant locations; (2) applying the proposed framework in the context of the energy industry in a gulf region country and investigating expert-based and entropy-based criterion weight assignments; (3) choosing five possible alternative wind energy power plant locations with 17 response criteria for each alternative to help decision makers identify the best possible alternative; and (4) establishing the superiority of one alternative over another (if it exists). The presented approach extends considerable support to the comparing and ranking of alternatives along with its validation and sensitivity analysis. Based on the proposed multi-criteria decision-making approach, an appropriate wind energy power plant location has been successfully selected among the five alternatives.

Keywords: Multi-criteria decision making; wind energy; renewable energy; visual promethee; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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