applications of multi-criteria decision-making (mcdm) methods in renewable energy development: a review

Renewable energies are noticeably developing due to their various advantages such as low greenhouse gases emission, availability, and reducing cost trend. in order to achieve the favorable objectives in energy projects, it is crucial to consider all the related parameters affecting the decision-making. the multi-criteria decision-making (mcdm) methods are reliable and efficient tools for policy-making and achieving the most appropriate solution. these approaches consider the influential factors and their relative importance in prioritizing the alternatives. since the outcome of the mcdm approaches depends on the employed algorithm and the criteria used, this article focuses on the studies related to the applications of these methods in renewable energy technology selection. the aim of the present work is to extract the criteria that are necessary to be used in decision-making for renewable energy systems. in addition, the approaches employed for improving the performance of mcdm methods as decision-making aids are represented. according to this review study, the technical, economic, and environmental criteria are utilized in the majority of decision-making research works. moreover, some of the studies have considered other criteria such as social and risk to achieve more reliable decisions. some ideas are represented in the reviewed research works such as integrating different methods and using fuzzy sets instead of crisp sets to improve the performance of the mcdm methods and reduce the uncertainties.