Ensemble ranking : an aggregation of multiple multicriteria methods and scenarios and its application to power generation planning

Evaluating maintenance plans for power generation is a critical task managed by the National System Operator, as it is directly related to criteria such as operational cost, rationing, and availability of natural resources. This study identifies the most suitable maintenance schedule between uncertainties related to solution ranking methods and future scenarios. We investigated the performance of various multicriteria decision-making methods, including the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), TODIM ((an acronym in Portuguese for Interactive Multicriteria decision-making), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR), and Weighted Aggregated Sum Product ASsessment (WASPAS), in prioritizing maintenance plans across three scenarios. These included a scenario derived from an energy generation problem and two others based on variations in hydrology and energy demand parameters. The results analyze and discuss the similarities and differences in the rankings. Due to the lack of consensus among the methods regarding the optimal maintenance plan, we propose an ensemble ranking that considers an important factor for both the method and the scenario. The solution from the ensemble ranking, compared to the lowest-cost solution obtained in the optimization process, showed a slight cost increase of 0.32% and a 9.34% deviation from the base maintenance plan, yet it can deal with different uncertainties. The findings of this study can provide useful and robust information to energy stakeholders and serve as a reference for energy policy.