Green energy sources (GES) selection based on multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA)

Purpose – Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption is a big challenge on the view of global warming and climate changes caused by greenhouse gases as per recent scientific reports. This paper aims to identify the major challenges of green energy sources (GES) to the future power systems and suggests an appropriate GES based on the preference by the decision maker on the various issues to meet these challenges. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed work presents a multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) – the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate the GES – photovoltaic (PV), wind generator (WG), biomass (BM) and micro‐hydel (MH) and to find the appropriate selection in general, by evaluating its main operational characteristic. In this research, the choices of the green energy alternatives on the basis of various factors have been taken into consideration. MATLAB simulation of different criteria to ascertain their clear‐cut effects on GES selection under multiple uncertainties are presented. Findings – Related articles appearing in the recently published (1995‐2010) works, based on green energy scope and practical implementations, and earlier approaches in the field of energy are gathered and analyzed so that the following questions can be answered: Which evaluating criteria are paid more attention to? Which source is the best GES? Which is the most critical factor in the green energy selection. This research not only provides the application of MCDA to evaluate the operation of the GES – PV, WG, BM and MH but also aids the researchers and decision makers in applying the approaches effectively. Originality/value – This is the first analysis in the green energy selection which considers future uncertainties of the GES. Instead of focusing only on cost factor, the proposed work considers main uncertainties of the GES. The best GES will be decided based on the preference of the criterion chosen by the end‐user.