The purpose of this paper is to propose a new multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) technique to determine the priority of renewable power plants construction conceding technical, economic, social, political and environmental aspects.
First, a comprehensive set of 5 main criteria of technical, economic, social, political and environmental are considered for renewable power plants construction, each including 5 sub-criteria (a total of 25 sub-criteria). Then, the analytic hierarchy process method is used to determine the weight of the criteria. Finally, a new MCDM technique proposed to prioritize the construction of renewable power plants, named TOPKOR. To demonstrate the capability of the proposed method, a case study is conducted in which six types of renewable power plants are evaluated.
Comparison results of the main criteria weights show that the “economic” [0.403], “environmental” [0.296] and “technical” [0.17] aspects have the highest importance, respectively. The results also show that solar, hydroelectric and wave and tidal power plants have the highest priority for construction, respectively.
The result of this research could be useful for related decision makers in construction of the renewable power plants to have a comprehensive set of criteria in technical, economic, social, political and environmental aspects in their decision process.
This research provides a comprehensive set of criteria and sub-criteria for prioritizing the renewable power plants. Moreover, a new hybrid MCDM technique is introduced for prioritizing the construction of power plants.
