Evaluation of Wave Energy Location by Using an Integrated MCDM Approach

Abstract

In recent years, sudden global energy demand has led to the gradual exhaustion of fossil fuel, the world’s main energy resource. With the negative impact of fossil fuel on the environment, governments and organizations have increased R&D funding on renewable energy resources such as solar and wave energy. Vietnam has a great potential for developing wave energy projects owing to the presence of a long coastline and vast ocean. Choosing an optimal location for wave-based power plant projects is a multicriteria decision that requires understanding the quantitative and qualitative elements for assessing the balance of factors when trying to reach the most accurate result. This study proposes a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, fuzzy-analytic hierarchical process (FAHP), and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) in evaluating potential wave energy stations at the Vietnamese coastline. The authors identify all criteria and sub-criteria affecting the wave power plant location selection process through literature review and expert interview. Selection criteria include wave height, the distance between two waves, number of waves, wind speed, wind duration, ocean depth, turbulence, water quality, coastal erosion, shipping density, protection laws, labor resources, safety conditions, and other related factors. FAHP was used to determining the weights of the identified criteria in the first stage of this study. Finally, the WASPAS model was employed to rank all the alternatives involved in making an effective decision. This study aimed to develop a tool to enhance decision-making when solving fuzzy multi-criteria problems. We propose a real-world model for the effectiveness of the proposed model.

A comprehensive review on applications of multicriteria decision‐making methods in power and energy systems

“…Lee et al 83 applied an FAHP approach to assign rank to the weights of hydrogen storage techniques from the aspects of hydrogen economy. Apart from identifying site locations for solar and wind farms, wave energy as another source of renewable energy has been explored by Wang and Chen 84 . They have employed FAHP and weighted aggregated sum‐product assessment (WASPAS) techniques for identifying optimal location for wave energy plant along coastlines of Vietnam.…”

Model of Choice Photovoltaic Panels Considering Customers’ Expectations

“…Then, the quality of technical criteria of photovoltaic panels related to customer expectations was estimated. For that, a combination of methods was used, i.e., zero-unitarization method (MUZ) [36][37][38][39][40] and a weighted sum model (WSM) [41][42][43][44]. The assessment of quality of criteria was done on the Likert scale [45,46], and then normalized by the MUZ method.…”

“…The WSM method is used to estimate product quality based on normalized criteria values, where quality is calculated considering the weighting of these criteria. The selected benefits for applying of the WPM method [41][42][43][44] were:  Effective for matching several of the criteria of the product, where these criteria are independent of each other;  Effective in estimating the product quality based on the normalized quality of criteria;  Allows estimation of product quality considering criteria weighting.…”

“…The normalized, weighted decision matrix A WSM i is created. For this purpose, the Formula ( 15) is used [41][42][43][44]:…”

“…The WSM method is used to estimate product quality based on normalized criteria values, where quality is calculated considering the weighting of these criteria. The selected benefits for applying of the WPM method [41][42][43][44] were:…”