Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Strategy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/esr

Review

A state-of-the-art review on multi-attribute renewable energy decision T

making
Esra Ilbahara,b,∗, Selcuk Cebia, Cengiz Kahramanb
a
Department of Industrial Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Besiktas, 34349, Istanbul, Turkey
b
Department of Industrial Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Macka, 34367, Istanbul, Turkey

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The utilization of renewable energy sources has come into prominence especially over the last two decades. In
Renewable energy the literature, various methods have been utilized for the evaluation of renewable energy sources. In particular,
Sustainability multi-attribute decision making (MADM) methods have been widely used throughout the renewable energy
Multi-attribute decision making literature for several purposes such as evaluation of energy policies, selection of the most suitable renewable
Analytic hierarchy process
energy source for electricity generation, evaluation of renewable energy sources, identification of the optimal
Analytic network process
site for a renewable energy facility, and selection of the best one among energy alternatives. In the scope of this
paper, the studies employing MADM methods in renewable energy applications have been taken into con-
sideration. The main aim of the study is to determine the reasons and factors explaining why these methods have
been employed. It can be concluded that Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP),
ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité (ELECTRE) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to
Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) have come into the forefront as the most widely employed methods in the literature.
However, there are a few studies employing outranking methods, ELECTRE and Preference Ranking
Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) for the purpose of evaluating renewable energy
investments/projects. Furthermore, in the literature, there are limited papers considering utilization of renew-
able energy sources such as geothermal, hydro, and waste. Finally, this study indicates that renewable energy
exploitation is a quite suitable topic to use MADM methods.

1. Introduction
Energy sources have critical impact on strategic policies of countries
since energy is vital for daily life services such as warming, cooking,
manufacturing, and transportation. Nowadays, various energy sources
such as fuel oil, natural gas, wind energy and solar energy are utilized
to provide these services. It is important to obtain energy from the
sources that are safe, dependable, and environmentally sound.
Therefore, the utilization of renewable energy sources has come into
prominence especially over the last two decades. Most of the countries
around the world aim at substituting conventional energy sources such
as fuel oil, coal, and gas with renewable energy sources such as wind,
solar, and geothermal due to increasing environmental concerns and
sustainability issues [1]. The main environmental concern about the
conventional energy utilization is CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions from
fuel combustion increased from 20,623 Mt in 1990 to 32,189.7 Mt in
2013; in other words, 56.1% growth in CO2 emissions from fuel com-
bustion occurred over 1990–2013 [2]. Moreover, the energy supply in
the world has dramatically increased along with the energy demand
and it draws more attention to sustainability issues. Total primary en-
ergy supply in the world increased from 367,108 PJ to 566,946 PJ be-
tween the years 1990 and 2013, in other words, total primary energy
supply grew 54.4% over 1990–2013 [2]. This is why the appropriate
exploitation of renewable energy sources is extremely important. The
exploitation of renewable energy sources provides opportunities to
minimize environmental impacts and secondary waste, to mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions, to diversify energy supply, and to ensure
sustainability [3]. However, according to the report of International
Energy Agency (IEA), only 13.8% of total primary energy supply con-
sists of renewable energy sources such as biofuels, waste, hydro, geo-
thermal, solar and wind [4]. It is thus possible to say that more studies
on renewable energy are required to ensure the efficient use of sus-
tainable energy and consequently to determine the necessary actions.
Therefore, the main objective of this study is to analyze the past studies
in order to identify trends and patterns in the renewable energy lit-
erature and to provide a road map to researchers who will work on this

∗
Corresponding author. Department of Industrial Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Besiktas, 34349, Istanbul, Turkey.
E-mail address: eilbahar@yildiz.edu.tr (E. Ilbahar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.04.014
Received 14 September 2018; Received in revised form 8 February 2019; Accepted 16 April 2019
Available online 07 May 2019
2211-467X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
E. Ilbahar, et al.
topic in the future. This paper provides an insight on the adoption of
these methods for what purposes and with which factors. With a similar
objective, Wang et al. made a review on multi-criteria decision analysis
aid in sustainable energy decision-making in 2009 [5]. Therefore, in
this study, we consider the papers from 2009 to the present.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The preliminaries of
MADM and fuzzy sets theory are given in Section 2. A literature review
on MADM techniques used in the renewable energy field is given in
Section 3. The renewable energy studies in the literature are categor-
ized into 5 classes: the studies using (i) Analytic hierarchy process
(AHP), (ii) Analytic Network Process (ANP), (iii) Technique for Order
Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), (iv) ELimination et
Choice Translating Reality (ELECTRE), and (v) other methods. We
further categorize studies whether they are under certainty or under
uncertainty. The uncertainty is generally handled by fuzzy sets in the
literature. Hence, we consider this categorization in our analysis of
literature. Section 4 presents an analysis of the literature to identify
patterns, trends, and gaps. Lastly, concluding remarks are given in
Section 5.
2. Multi-Attribute decision making methods and fuzzy sets theory
The objective of this section is to provide the fundamentals of the
multi-attribute decision making (MADM) methods and fuzzy sets theory
used in application-based energy studies.
2.1. Multi-Attribute decision making methods
A multi-attribute decision making method (MADM) is a procedure
defining how the information on attributes is processed to decide the
best possible choice among the possible alternatives. Two major ap-
proaches exist for processing attribute information: compensatory
models allow trade-offs between attributes while noncompensatory
models do not allow these trade-offs. Moreover, a further classification
was made based on the decision makers’ judgments since their judg-
ments are different in terms of form and depth. A decision maker might
not demonstrate his preferences at all or might show his preference via
attributes or alternatives. Moreover, the different preference informa-
tion on attributes might be categorized in the ascending order of
complexity as standard level, ordinal, cardinal, and marginal rate of
substitution. Based on these differences, MADM methods are classified
to meet these various circumstantial judgments [6]. The most
Fig. 1. Classification of commonly used MADM methods.
19
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
commonly used MADM methods in the literature can be classified as
methods based on pairwise comparison, scoring, and outranking. Fig. 1
shows the classification of the commonly used MADM methods.
2.2. Fuzzy sets theory
Fuzzy sets were introduced to the literature by Zadeh [7] due to
insufficiency of crisp numbers to deal with lack of knowledge and im-
precise information in the complex systems. Fuzzy sets use membership
degrees to represent the vagueness of the systems. Since it was in-
troduced, various extensions of fuzzy sets have been developed. Fig. 2
shows the major developments in the fuzzy sets theory. Type-n fuzzy
sets were proposed by Zadeh [8] to handle the impreciseness of the
membership function in the fuzzy sets theory. Atanassov [9] introduced
intuitionistic fuzzy sets which assign both membership and non-mem-
bership degrees to represent the vagueness of a complex system. Hesi-
tant fuzzy sets, proposed by Torra [10], are the extensions of fuzzy sets
in which a set of values may be assigned for the membership degree of a
single element. After Atanassov introduced intuitionistic type-2 fuzzy
sets in 1999 [11], Yager extended intuitionistic type-2 fuzzy sets and
called them Pythagorean fuzzy sets [12]. Pythagorean fuzzy sets pro-
vide decision makers with the opportunity to represent uncertainty via
a larger domain of membership and non-membership grades.
3. Multi-attribute decision making methods in exploitation of
renewable energy
In the renewable energy literature, various methods have been
utilized for several purposes. Within them, multi-attribute decision
making (MADM) methods are the most used ones. MADM methods deal
with the selection among potential alternatives or evaluation of several
alternatives under the multiple criteria that some of them may be
conflicting with each other. These methods have been also utilized
throughout the renewable energy literature in order to evaluate energy
policies, to determine the most suitable energy source, to assess energy
sources performances, to identify the optimal location of an energy
facility, and to select the best one among different energy technologies.
MADM methods are highly effective to come up with an efficient so-
lution to these problems since these problems involve various factors,
environmental, social, financial, etc., that must be taken into con-
sideration. Therefore, MADM methods employed for renewable energy
exploitation are examined in this study.
E. Ilbahar, et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Fig. 2. Developments in Fuzzy sets theory [7–10,12].

These studies are examined under five sub-categories formed with alternative for a hydropower plant. Various criteria such as protected
respect to the most preferred methods throughout the literature as AHP, fauna, water quality, fish population, landscape quality, vegetation, and
ANP, ELECTRE, TOPSIS and other methods. Under these sub-categories, flow regime were considered while conducting AHP [69]. Ahmad and
objectives of the studies, criteria taken into account are presented to Tahar [79] examined renewable energy sources for sustainable elec-
provide an insight on the utilization of these MADM methods for what tricity generation by taking technical, economic, social and environ-
purpose and in the presence of which factors. The studies that employ mental factors into account. Hydropower, solar, wind, biomass are the
MADM methods to assess renewable energy alternatives, strategies, and renewable energy sources considered in their study. Prioritization of
investments are given in Table 1. these resources with respect to the identified factors was made through
AHP and solar energy was determined as the most appropriate source
[79]. Singh and Nachtnebel [61] investigated the most appropriate
3.1. Analytic hierarchy process
scale of hydropower development in Nepal by using AHP. In other
words, their objective was to examine possible consequences of the
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), one of the additive weighting
hydropower plants at various scales and to rank hydropower plants by
methods [130], is the most commonly used MADM method to address
considering social, economic, environmental, political and technical
renewable and sustainable energy problems. The core of AHP is to state
issues. It was indicated that medium hydropower is the most appro-
a complex problem in a hierarchical structure. Decision alternatives are
priate alternative, followed by big hydropower schemes [61]. Su-
located at the bottom of this hierarchy whereas goal is at the top of the
priyasilp [128] used AHP as well to identify the potential location for
hierarchy [91]. AHP deals with attribute weighting problem by making
hydropower development. Potić et al. [50] utilized AHP to determine
pairwise comparisons among competing attributes. There are several
the most appropriate location for a solar panel power plant while
studies utilizing AHP in the exploitation of renewable energy.
considering several criteria such as mean potential insolation, mean
Stein [91] adopted AHP to rank electric energy production tech-
cloudiness for corresponding months, mean temperature, grade and
nologies which include wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, hydropower,
aspect. Tahri et al. [64] adopted AHP to evaluate solar farm locations
nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal by taking financial, technical, en-
while considering location, orography, land use and climate criteria.
vironmental and socio-economic-political criteria into consideration. It
Watson and Hudson [71] also utilized AHP to assess wind farm and
was concluded that wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal outper-
solar farm suitability. Sindhu et al. [58] also employed AHP to specify
form the others [91]. Erol and Kılkıs [103] aimed to derive sustainable
and prioritize the challenges in the growth of solar energy in India. Al
and robust energy policies in Turkey by assessing energy sources,
Garni et al. [44] utilized AHP to assess renewable power generation
geothermal power, lignite, natural gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric and
sources in Saudi Arabia by considering several technical, socio-political,
hydrokinetic powers, through AHP. Ease of access to the source, source
economic, and environmental criteria. Solar photovoltaic, concentrated
durability, source sustainability, additional investments, superiority of
solar power, biomass, geothermal and wind energy sources are eval-
technology, completeness of technology, reliability of technology and
uated and it was concluded that solar photovoltaic is the most appro-
operation, possibility of acquiring original technology, carbon foot-
priate technology followed by concentrated solar power [44]. Shir-
print, requirement of resources, effect of the technology to the en-
gholami [56] investigated the evaluation criteria influencing the
vironment, acceptability by local resident, supplementary usage of the
selection of wind turbines by using AHP in order to assess wind turbines
resources, are the factors taken into account to achieve this purpose.
when designing a wind farm. Cobuloglu and Büyüktahtakın [62] aimed
Views of business people, environmentalists, local residents, academi-
to determine the most sustainable biomass crop type for biofuel pro-
cians, and public authorities were included to this process and im-
duction by using stochastic AHP method. The proposed stochastic AHP
portance degrees of their views were determined, then the importance
method is able to deal with uncertain information and determine
weights of energy sources for each of these groups were identified
weights of criteria which are categorized as economic, environmental,
[103]. Wu and Geng [78] indicated that accessibility, resource, eco-
and social [62]. Hernández-Torres et al. [75] utilized AHP as well in the
nomic, risk and environmental attributes are important for solar-wind
process of designing a small-scale hybrid renewable energy system.
hybrid power station site selection from the project management point
In addition, various methods such as Data Envelopment Analysis
of view. A framework based on AHP method was, thus, proposed to
(DEA), Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS), axiomatic design, and
perform more elaborate evaluation. Fuentes-Bargues and Ferrer-Gisbert
Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks (BOCR) are used together or
[69] used AHP method in order to determine the most appropriate

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E. Ilbahar, et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Table 1
MADM methods used in the literature.
Authors Year MADM Methods Integ. Meth.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 OTHER FUZZY OTHER

Andreopoulou et al. [13] 2018 ✓

Ozdemir and Sahin [14] 2018 ✓
Jeong and Ramírez-Gomez [15] 2018 ✓ 14 ✓
Gottfried et al. [16] 2018 ✓ 33
Ebrahimi et al. [17] 2018 ✓
Vishnupriyan and Manoharan 2018 ✓
[18]
Ulloa et al. [19] 2018 ✓
Ghimire and Kim [20] 2018 ✓
Bili and Vagiona [21] 2018 ✓
Boran [22] 2018 ✓ ✓
Wang et al. [23] 2018 ✓ ✓ ✓
Yazdani et al. [24] 2018 ✓ ✓
Okioga et al. [25] 2018 ✓ 31
Keeley and Matsumoto [26] 2018 ✓
Lee et al. [27] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓ 35
Samanlioglu and Ayag [28] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓
Kuleli Pak et al. [29] 2017 ✓ ✓ 31
Ligus [30] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓
Balin and Baracli [31] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓
Rapal et al. [32] 2017 ✓
Haddad et al. [33] 2017 ✓
Gigovic et al. [34] 2017 ✓ ✓
Ahmad et al. [35] 2017 ✓
Buyukozkan and Guleryuz [36] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Buyukozkan and Karabulut [37] 2017 ✓ ✓
Rezaei-Shouroki et al. [38] 2017 ✓ ✓ 24 ✓
Al Garni and Awasthi [39] 2017 ✓
Tapio et al. [40] 2017 ✓
Papapostolou et al. [41] 2017 ✓ ✓
Akbas and Bilgen [42] 2017 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Matulaitis et al. [43] 2016 ✓
Al Garni et al. [44] 2016 ✓
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [45] 2016 ✓ ✓ ✓
Govindan et al. [46] 2016 ✓ ✓ ✓
Grágeda et al. [47] 2016 9
Shmelev et al. [48] 2016 10
Štreimikienė et al. [49] 2016 ✓ 11
Potić et al. [50] 2016 ✓
Höfer et al. [51] 2016 ✓
Cutz et al. [52] 2016 ✓
Wu et al. [53] 2016 ✓ ✓
Luthra et al. [54] 2016 ✓ ✓
Kassem et al. [55] 2016 ✓ 28
Shirgholami et al. [56] 2016 ✓
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [57] 2016 ✓ ✓ ✓
Sindhu et al. [58] 2016 ✓
Andrade et al. [59] 2016 12
Petrillo et al. [60] 2016 ✓ 29
Singh and Nachtnebel [61] 2016 ✓
Cobuloglu and Buyuktahtakın 2015 ✓
[62]
Zhang et al. [63] 2015 13 ✓
Tahri et al. [64] 2015 ✓
Yap and Nixon [65] 2015 ✓
Latinopoulos and Kechagia [66] 2015 14
Shafiee [67] 2015 ✓ ✓
Sengul et al. [68] 2015 ✓ 15 ✓
Fuentes-Bargues and Ferrer- 2015 ✓
Gisbert [69]
Atici et al. [70] 2015 ✓ ✓ 16
Watson and Hudson [71] 2015 ✓
Sakthivel and Ilangkumaran [72] 2015 ✓ ✓ ✓
Fetanat and Khorasaninejad [73] 2015 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [74] 2015 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Hernández-Torres et al. [75] 2015 ✓
Troldborg et al. [76] 2014 ✓ 30
Alsayed et al. [77] 2014 ✓
Yunna and Geng [78] 2014 ✓
Ahmad and Tahar [79] 2014 ✓
Hawila et al. [80] 2014 17
Silva et al. [81] 2014 ✓
(continued on next page)

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E. Ilbahar, et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Table 1 (continued)

Authors Year MADM Methods Integ. Meth.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 OTHER FUZZY OTHER

Jun et al. [82] 2014 ✓

Sánchez-Lozano et al. [83] 2014 ✓ 18
Kabak and Dağdeviren [84] 2014 ✓ 31
Yeh and Huang [85] 2014 ✓ ✓ ✓ 32
Vafaeipour et al. [86] 2014 ✓ 19
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [87] 2014 ✓ 20
Tasri and Susilawati [88] 2014 ✓ ✓
Aragonés-Beltrán et al. [89] 2014 ✓ ✓
Kurka and Blackwood [90] 2013 21
Stein [91] 2013 ✓
Uyan [92] 2013 ✓
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [93] 2013 ✓ ✓
Balezentiene et al. [94] 2013 22 ✓
Catron et al. [95] 2013 ✓ 33
Vučijak et al. [96] 2013 ✓
Sliogeriene et al. [97] 2013 ✓ 11
Aydin et al. [98] 2013 23
Tian et al. [99] 2013 ✓
Lee et al. [100] 2013 ✓ 24 ✓
Çebi and Kahraman [101] 2013 13
Masini and Menichetti [102] 2012 25 34
Erol and Kılkıs [103] 2012 ✓
Iskin et al. [104] 2012 ✓
Atmaca and Basar [105] 2012 ✓
Lee et al. [106] 2012 ✓ ✓ 35
Choudhary and Shankar [107] 2012 ✓ ✓ ✓
Sadeghi et al. [108] 2012 ✓ ✓ ✓
Al-Yahyai et al. [109] 2012 ✓ 23
Lee et al. [110] 2011 ✓ 24 ✓
Catalina et al. [111] 2011 ✓
Yi et al. [112] 2011 ✓ 30
Kaya and Kahraman [113] 2011 ✓ ✓ ✓
San Cristóbal [114] 2011 ✓ ✓
Kaya and Kahraman [115] 2010 ✓ ✓ ✓
Shen et al. [116] 2010 ✓ ✓
Aydin et al. [117] 2010 23, 26
Aragonés-Beltrán et al. [118] 2010 ✓ ✓
Kahraman and Kaya [119] 2010 ✓ ✓
Chen et al. [120] 2010 ✓ 31 ✓
Cavallaro [121] 2010 ✓ ✓
Heo et al. [122] 2010 ✓ ✓
Lee at al [123]. 2010 ✓ 24 ✓
Kahraman et al. [124] 2009 ✓ 27 ✓
Tsoutsos et al. [125] 2009 ✓
Kowalski et al. [126] 2009 ✓
Madlener et al. [127] 2009 ✓ 24
Supriyasilp et al. [128] 2009 ✓
Lee et al. [129] 2009 ✓ 31

1. AHP 13. CHOQUET INTEGRAL 24. DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

2. ANP 14. WEIGHTED LINEAR 25. CONJOINT ANALYSIS
COMBINATION
3. ELECTRE 15. INTERVAL SHANNON'S 26. “AND”, “OR” AGGREGATION
ENTROPY OPERATORS
4. TOPSIS 16. SMAA-TRI 27. AXIOMATIC DESIGN
5. PROMETHEE 17. WEIGHTED SUM 28. VALUE TREE
6. VIKOR 18. IRIS 29. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
7. DEMATEL 19. WEIGHTED ASSESSMENT 30. MONTE CARLO SIMULATION
8. DELPHI 20. LEXICOGRAPHIC ORDER 31. BOCR
9. SUBJECTIVE WEIGHTING 21. A THREE-POINT SCALE 32. GQM
10. AGGREGATED PREFERENCE 22. MULTI-OBJECTIVE 33. SWOT
INDICES SYSTEM OPTIMIZATION BY RATIO ANALYSIS
11. ADDITIVE RATIO 23. OWA 34. REGRESSION
ASSESSMENT
12. MACBETH 35. ISM

integrated with AHP. Štreimikienė et al. [49] employed AHP and ARAS
method to assess electricity generation technologies in Lithuania while
considering their economic, technological, environmental, social and
political aspects. Sliogeriene et al. [97] analyzed Lithuania's energy
generation technologies using AHP and ARAS. By analyzing qualitative
and quantitative criteria, the energy generation technologies were
ranked while taking their institutional, economic, technological, en-
vironmental and social aspects into consideration. AHP and ARAS were
utilized to determine importance weights of the qualitative criteria, and
to rate technologies, respectively. It was concluded that biomass tech-
nologies had a priority among the energy generation technologies re-
lated to renewable energy sources [97]. Ishizaka et al. [131]

22
E. Ilbahar, et al.
investigated the appropriate energy mix for UK by utilizing graphical
analysis for interactive aid (GAIA) and AHP method. The combination
of AHP and GAIA enables users to visualize the difference of opinions
and to reflect evolution in their preferences over time. Initially, parti-
cipants were asked to rank energy sources in UK for the next twenty
years, and to compare the options in pairs. The participants were then
asked to compare the same options after having detailed information on
commonly used evaluation criteria to assess energy resources. As a
result of this elaborated comparison, energy sources were analyzed
through AHP. The GAIA method was employed to reflect the change in
participants' preferences [131]. Höfer et al. [51] aimed at improving
wind farm siting process by taking techno-economic, socio-political,
and environmental criteria into account. Wind energy potential, dis-
tance from road network, distance from electricity grid, slope of terrain,
distance from urban areas, distance from places of interest, distance
from natural environments, land cover type, landscape architecture
were the criteria utilized. Geographic Information System (GIS)-based
AHP approach was employed to obtain the relative importance degree
of each criterion. It was shown that wind energy potential had the
highest weight, followed by distance from natural environments. For
the selection process of the suitable areas, all areas which are eligible
due to legal restrictions and factual reasons was initially excluded, then
a rated area map that represents the experts' opinion was generated.
The exclusion area was removed from the rated area, and lastly, the
suitable areas were classified with respect to their value score [51]. The
purpose of the Uyan's [92] study was to select the most suitable sites for
solar farms by using AHP and GIS. Distance from residential areas, land
use, distance from roads, slope, distance from transmission lines were
the criteria used in his study to assess the potential sites. AHP was
employed to identify the weights of these criteria, and it was concluded
that land use had the highest weight, followed by distance from
transmission lines and distance from residential areas, respectively
[92]. In the study of Yap and Nixon [65], BOCR and AHP methodolo-
gies were utilized to evaluate energy recovery from waste options. Yi
et al. [112] also used the combination of AHP and BOCR to evaluate
sustainable renewable energy sources in North Korea. In their study,
BOCR was combined with AHP to solve the disagreement problem
among the survey participants on the selection of factors [112]. Atici
et al. [70] investigated site selection problems for wind power plants
and proposed a methodology to identify the most suitable sites. The
proposed methodology consists of elimination of infeasible sites and
assessment of the available sites. In the study, GIS was employed to
obtain layers of data and to apply the identified evaluation criteria
which are capacity factor, slope, distance to fault lines, to transmission
lines, and to roads. Criteria weights were determined using an AHP-
based approach and it is found that capacity factor has the highest
criteria weight, is followed by distance to transmission lines. ELECTRE
III, ELECTRE-TRI and Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis
(SMAA)-TRI were then used for ranking, sorting and sorting under
uncertainty, respectively. Sánchez-Lozano et al. [57] aimed to identify
the best locations for solar photovoltaic farms in the southeast of Spain.
GIS was employed to determine the suitable areas to build solar pho-
tovoltaic farms by taking various restrictions and factors into account.
The criteria weights used to assess alternative sites were determined
through AHP. Then, the suitable sites were evaluated and classified
using both TOPSIS and ELECTRE TRI. A comparison between these two
methods was performed and it was concluded that there was a simi-
larity in the results even though they were not exactly the same. Ba-
goaius et al. [132] used both AHP and permutation method to identify
the sequence for the construction related process of the offshore wind
farms. In the paper, the criteria weights required for the permutation
method were obtained through AHP. Chaouachi et al. [133] adopted
both GIS and AHP to evaluate offshore wind sites by considering the
electricity network's operating security aspects, economic investment,
operation costs and capacity performances relative to each potential
site.
23
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
Fuzzy sets theory based extensions of AHP method have been widely
used for the solution of renewable and sustainable energy problems
under uncertainty. Tasri and Susilawati [88] adopted fuzzy AHP to
identify the most suitable renewable energy sources for electricity
generation in Indonesia. Hydro power, geothermal, solar, wind, and
biomass are the renewable energy sources examined, and hydro power
was identified to be the most appropriate renewable energy source for
electricity generation [88]. In the study of Kahraman and Kaya [119],
fuzzy AHP was employed to identify the best energy policy by evalu-
ating energy alternatives. Shen et al. [116] aimed to determine the
suitable renewable energy sources for Taiwan to meet environmental,
economic, and energy policy goals of the country by using fuzzy ana-
lytic hierarchy process (FAHP). It was revealed that environmental goal
had the highest importance degree for the development of renewable
energy technologies in Taiwan. It was followed by the economic and
energy goals, respectively. According to the fulfillment levels of these
goals, the ranking of renewable energy sources was determined from
the best to the worst as follows: Hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal,
biomass, and ocean energy, respectively [116]. Heo et al. [122] ana-
lyzed the assessment factors for renewable energy dissemination pro-
gram evaluation by utilizing fuzzy AHP. Seventeen factors were cate-
gorized under five main criteria as technological, market-related,
economic, environmental, and policy-related. Then, the importance
degree of each factor was obtained using the fuzzy AHP. It was con-
cluded that economic feasibility has the greatest importance among all
these factors [122].
In addition, some other methods have been integrated to fuzzy AHP
method to evaluate renewable energy alternatives and technologies.
Kahraman et al. [124] utilized the fuzzy axiomatic design and per-
formed a comparison with fuzzy AHP to identify the most appropriate
renewable energy alternative for Turkey. As a result, wind energy was
determined to be the best alternative and it is followed by solar energy
[124]. Lee et al. [110] investigated the efficiency of hydrogen energy
technologies to implement the hydrogen economy by taking economic
impact, commercial potential, inner capacity, technical spin-off, and
development cost into consideration. Fuzzy AHP and DEA were adopted
to determine criteria weights and to measure the efficiency of hydrogen
energy technologies with a ratio of outputs over inputs, respectively
[110]. Lee et al. [123] evaluated the efficiency of the R&D performance
in the national hydrogen energy technology development by using
Fuzzy AHP and DEA. Fuzzy AHP was adopted to identify the weights of
criteria which are technological status, R&D human resources, R&D
budget, and infrastructure of hydrogen technology. The DEA method
was then used to determine the efficiency of the national R&D perfor-
mance in the hydrogen energy technology development [123]. Lee
et al. [100] evaluated the strategic energy technologies by considering
economic impact, commercial potential, inner capacity, technical spin-
off, and development cost. The fuzzy AHP is adopted to obtain the re-
lative weights of criteria whereas the data envelopment analysis was
adopted to evaluate the efficiency of energy technologies against high
oil prices with economic perspective [100]. In the study of Sánchez-
Lozano et al. [93], the combination of GIS, AHP and TOPSIS method
were used in order to identify the optimal place for photovoltaic solar
power plants in southeast Spain. In their study, location, geomorpho-
logical, environmental, and climatic criteria were utilized to evaluate
potential sites. Then, AHP was used to determine the weights of these
main criteria and their sub-criteria. Finally, the priorities of the criteria
were found from the best to worst as location, climatic, geomorpholo-
gical, and environmental criteria, respectively. Then, TOPSIS method
was adopted to assess the alternative sites with respect to their ade-
quacy. Sadeghi et al. [108] evaluated renewable energy sources in Iran
to determine the best renewable energy source for electricity genera-
tion. Fuzzy AHP was adopted to identify the criteria weights whereas
Fuzzy TOPSIS was used to rank the alternative sources, namely solar,
geothermal, hydropower and wind energies. It was concluded that solar
energy was the most suitable renewable energy source for the specified
E. Ilbahar, et al.
area [108]. Choudhary and Shankar [107] proposed a STEEP-fuzzy
AHP-TOPSIS approach to assess and to select the optimal locations for
thermal power plants. Alternative locations were determined by taking
social, technical, economic, environmental, and political (STEEP) con-
cerns into account. The fuzzy AHP was utilized to identify the weights
of criteria used in location selection process. TOPSIS was then adopted
to rank the alternative locations with respect to their overall perfor-
mance [107]. Kaya and Kahraman [113] proposed a fuzzy TOPSIS
approach to select the best energy technology alternative, and in this
approach, the criteria weights were determined using fuzzy AHP. In the
study of Sánchez-Lozano et al. [45], the Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS
were adopted to derive the criteria weights and to assess the alternative
sites for a wind farm, respectively. Sánchez-Lozano et al. [74] in-
vestigated the best location for a solar thermoelectric power plant. In
their study, the area of study was reduced by considering various re-
strictions such as urban lands, protected and undeveloped lands, areas
of high landscape value, military zones and cattle trails, watercourses
and streams, archaeological sites, paleontological sites, cultural heri-
tage, roads and railroad network, Mediterranean coast and mountains.
GIS was used to provide the database containing the alternatives to
assess, and AHP was utilized to derive the criteria weights. The criteria
such as agrological capacity, slope, field orientation, area, and distance
to electricity transformer substations, to cities, to main roads, to power
lines, potential solar radiation and average temperature were used.
Fuzzy TOPSIS method was employed to assess the alternatives, and the
comparison of this method with ELECTRE-TRI was made [74].
3.2. Analytic Network Process
AHP does not consider the mutual dependencies among attributes
while obtaining importance degrees of them. Therefore, Analytic
Network Process (ANP) is developed by Saaty in 1996 [134] to cope
with this difficulty [130]. There are many studies using ANP in the
exploitation of renewable energy.
Iskin et al. [104] adopted ANP to examine factors influencing re-
newable energy pricing by taking social, technical, environmental and
economic aspects into consideration. Atmaca and Basar [105] eval-
uated natural gas, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, coal/lignite, and
nuclear energy plants using ANP while taking technology and sustain-
ability, economic suitability, life quality, and socio-economic criteria
into account. ANP has also been integrated with some other methods
for renewable energy evaluation in the literature. Kabak and Dağde-
viren [84] used BOCR and ANP to evaluate alternative renewable en-
ergy sources in Turkey. A strategic analysis on the country's energy
issues was provided through BOCR method whereas the dependencies
among the alternatives and BOCR criteria were examined through ANP.
Then, these dependencies were considered while identifying the criteria
weights. The considered renewable energy alternatives were hydro,
geothermal, solar, wind and biomass sources. It was concluded that
hydro power is the optimal renewable energy source for Turkey [84].
The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) and
ANP methods were adopted by Catron et al. [95] to evaluate bioenergy
development in Kentucky. Aragonés-Beltrán et al. [89] investigated
whether to invest in a particular solar-thermal power plant project or
not, and identified priorities of the projects using both AHP and ANP.
According to the proposed methodology, submitted project proposals
were initially examined with respect to some criteria and whether to
accept or reject the project was decided by using AHP. Accepted pro-
jects were then evaluated according to new criteria which require
deeper knowledge of the project. In the last step, both AHP and ANP
were utilized, and prioritization of feasible projects was done. It was
concluded that ANP outperforms AHP for this step [89]. In the study of
Aragonés-Beltrán et al. [118], the selection of photovoltaic solar power
projects was investigated to determine the best PV project investment
based on minimizing risk. The proposed approach enabled to identify
weights and estimated the risks of solar power project development.
24
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
Then, the priorities were established based on these risks. Both AHP and
ANP models were used, and a comparison between them was made. It
was concluded that AHP model could not consider the influences
among the elements of the network; however, ANP model took element
influences into account. It was thus indicated that ANP outperformed
AHP by managing all the information related to the problem [118].
Sakthivel and Ilangkumaran [72] proposed an approach which com-
bines ANP with TOPSIS and VIKOR to select the optimal fuel blend in
fish oil biodiesel for the IC engine. The ANP was adopted to identify the
criteria weights whereas TOPSIS and VIKOR were employed to rank the
alternative blends [72]. Govindan et al. [46] investigated the best
sustainable construction material by using a hybrid model consisting of
DEMATEL, ANP and TOPSIS. The combination of DEMATEL and ANP
was employed to examine the influences and interrelationships among
the criteria and to investigate dependencies in feedback among criteria
whereas TOPSIS was adopted to determine the best alternative [46].
Buyukozkan and Guleryuz [135] used the integration of DEMATEL
technique and ANP to determine the most suitable renewable energy
resource in Turkey from an investor point of view.
Fuzzy sets theory based approaches have been integrated to ANP
method in crisp and fuzzy form for the evaluation of renewable energy
systems. Yeh and Huang [85] investigated the factors considered to
identify suitable locations for wind farms by using the Goal/Question/
Metric (GQM) method, fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation
Laboratory Model (DEMATEL) and ANP. The six dimensions, namely,
safety and quality, economy and benefit, social impression, environ-
ment and ecology, regulation, and policy were employed to identify the
correlations among the relevant factors. These factors were associated
with various evaluation criteria. The DEMATEL and ANP methods were
then utilized to obtain the correlations among the dimensions and the
relative weights of the criteria, respectively [85]. Lee et al. [106] in-
vestigated the process of suitable turbine selection for a wind farm
using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and fuzzy ANP. The fac-
tors used for suitable turbine selection were listed under four main
criteria as machine characteristics, economic aspects, environmental
issues, and technical levels. The interrelationships among sub-criteria
under each criterion were identified by employing ISM whereas fuzzy
ANP was adopted to determine criteria and sub-criteria weights, and
assess the overall performance for the wind turbines [106]. The fuzzy
ANP, fuzzy DEMATEL, and fuzzy ELECTRE methods were used with the
aim of finding the best site for offshore wind farm in the study of Fe-
tanat and Khorasaninejad [73].
3.3. Technique for Order of Preference by similarity to ideal solution
Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution
(TOPSIS) is proposed by Huang and Yoon [6]. The method enables
decision makers to identify the best alternative which is close to the
positive ideal solution and far from the negative ideal solution as much
as possible. The ideal solution is a combination of the best attribute
values achievable whereas the negative ideal solution is a combination
of the worst attribute values [6,130]. In the literature, TOPSIS has been
widely used with several different methods such as AHP, DEMATEL,
ANP, VIKOR for the integration or comparison purposes. The studies
integrating TOPSIS with AHP and ANP have been given in Subsections
3.1 and 3.2, respectively. The studies including TOPSIS in the ex-
ploitation of renewable energy are given below.
Fuzzy sets theory based extension of TOPSIS method have been
commonly adopted in the literature. Sengul et al. [68] employed Fuzzy
TOPSIS method to rank renewable energy supply systems in Turkey.
The criteria employed in their study were efficiency, installed capacity,
amount of energy produced, investment cost, operation and main-
tenance cost, payback period, land use, value of CO2 emission, job
creation. As the method, Interval Shannon's Entropy method was
adopted to identify the weights of these criteria. As a result of the
analysis, the hydropower station was found as the most suitable
E. Ilbahar, et al.
renewable energy supply system for Turkey [68]. Cavallaro [121] also
used fuzzy TOPSIS to evaluate thermal-energy storage in concentrated
solar power systems. Buyukozkan and Guleryuz [36] used an integrated
MADM approach involving TOPSIS, DEMATEL, AND ANP to assess the
renewable energy sources in Turkey. Linguistic interval fuzzy sets based
preferences modelling is also used with this integrated approach to
better handle uncertainty of the decision making process. Akbas and
Bilgen [42] proposed an integrated fuzzy QFD and TOPSIS metho-
dology to select the ideal gas fuel at wastewater treatment plants. In
this study, fuzzy AHP is employed to identify importance weights of
attributes in order to prevent inconsistent results of crisp QFD analysis
whereas fuzzy ANP is utilized to take both symmetrical and asymme-
trical relationships between engineering characteristics and customer
requirements into consideration in order to form internal and external
correlation matrices. Balin and Baracli [31] adopted a fuzzy AHP ap-
proach based on type-2 fuzzy sets, and fuzzy MADM method based on
the interval type-2 TOPSIS for identifying the relative importance of
selection criteria and ranking the best renewable alternative energy,
respectively. Lotfi et al. [136] investigated wind farm location planning
by taking budget constraints into account. The fuzzy TOPSIS method is
employed to assess and rank the alternative cities, and then the ob-
tained results are utilized to propose a budget constrained model by
using fuzzy linear programming.
3.4. ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité
ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité (ELECTRE) is the second
most preferred method among the reviewed studies. The method is
proposed by Benayoun et al. [137], and preferences are modelled by
using binary outranking relations. It involves pairwise comparison of
alternatives based on the degree to which assessment of the alternatives
and preference weights confirm or contradict the pairwise dominance
relationships between the alternatives [91,137]. ELECTRE is able to
deal with quantitative or qualitative discrete criteria.
ELECTRE method is performed on outranking relations to model
preferences between each pair of alternatives. For the pairwise com-
parison, ELECTRE method utilizes concordance and discordance tests. An
alternative is determined as the best according to the other one if both
concordance and discordance tests are passed. The concordance test
utilizes to verify whether an alternative is preferred the other one while
the discordance test provides whether there is a high opposition to the
outranking relation between alternatives. In the literature, ELECTRE is
one of the most used outranking methods and ELECTRE I, ELECTRE II,
ELECTRE III, ELECTRE IV, and ELECTRE IS are the types of this method.
ELECTRE and ELECTRE I methods are the same. The difference between
ELECTRE IS and ELECTRE I is that ELECTRE IS utilizes a function
(pseudo-criteria) in which the discrimination between two alternatives
characterized by two thresholds: the indifference threshold and the strict
preference threshold. The main difference between ELECTRE I and
ELECTRE II based on the definition of outranking relations. In ELECTRE
II, two outranking relations which are known as the strong outranking
and the weak outranking are utilized instead of one outranking relation.
ELECTRE III is the mix of ELECTRE II and ELECTRE IS. It works as
ELECTRE II but uses pseudo-criteria as in ELECTRE IS instead of classical
true criteria. In ELECTRE III, an indifference threshold and a strict pre-
ference threshold are defined for each criterion. The main difference of
ELECTRE IV from the other methods is that ELECTRE IV does not require
decision makers’ weights. Furthermore, the concordance test is used as
binary in the ELECTRE I and ELECTRE II. In other words, when the test is
passed, the concordance is “1″ otherwise it is “0”. In ELECTRE III and
ELECTRE IV methods, the concordance index takes the values between 0
and 1 by using a fuzzy outranking relation, based on preference degree of
alternative. In addition to these methods, in the literature, there is
ELECTRE TRI method which is used to reduce the computational cost of
the method when the number of comparisons increases based on the
number of alternatives [138]. The studies utilizing ELECTRE in
25
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
exploitation of renewable energy are given below. The combination of
ELECTRE with AHP or ANP has been handled in Subsections 3.1 or 3.2,
respectively.
Catalina et al. [111] utilized ELECTRE III to analyze multi-source
energy systems. It was concluded that this method could allow the
decision makers to analyze a large number of alternatives although
uncertainty in the criteria weighting and thresholds values could be
qualified as an inconvenience. Moreover, it was stated that this in-
convenience could be managed through a sensitivity analysis and vi-
sualization of the outcome impacts. In the paper, ELECTRE III was
found an efficient method to make the outranking of possible solutions
[111]. In the study of Jun et al. [82], macro-site selection of wind/solar
hybrid power station was investigated. After data on natural resources,
economic factors, traffic conditions, environmental factors, and social
factors was collected for each region, these regions are assessed through
ELECTRE-II. Matulaitis et al. [43] assessed the impact of different fi-
nancial support policies on their attractiveness for domestic photo-
voltaic systems deployment. The ELECTRE III method was adopted to
identify economically and environmentally the most favorable alter-
native. All criteria were assumed to be equally important while ap-
plying ELECTRE III [43]. Sánchez-Lozano et al. [87] investigated the
site selection process for onshore wind farms. A categorical assessment
through a lexicographic order was made by employing the tools in the
GIS, and then, ELECTRE-TRI method was used to make a comparison
with the lexicographic order method. It was indicated that using fil-
tering techniques to select alternatives while dealing with such pro-
blems may yield the elimination of some viable alternatives [87]. In the
study of Silva et al. [81], the most suitable sites for locating biogas
plants in Portugal was investigated by taking various environmental,
economic, safety, and social criteria into account. Occupation and land
use, agricultural soils, slope, distance to the national ecological reserve,
distance to protected habitats, distance to the national agricultural re-
serve, distance to hydrographic network, distance to highways, distance
to regional and national roads, distance to the municipal roads and
paths, distance to electricity grid - medium voltage lines, distance to
electricity grid - high voltage, distance to urban, distance to industrial
area, distance to commercial area, distance to infrastructure, and dis-
tance to the built-up areas were the criteria used in this analysis. Spatial
information was processed by GIS whereas ELECTRE TRI was utilized to
classify the possible alternatives [81]. Madlener et al. [127] assessed 41
agricultural biogas plants located in Austria to evaluate their relative
performance with respect to economic, environmental, and social cri-
teria and corresponding indicators. The comparison of these plants was
made through DEA and interactive robustness analysis and parameters’
inference for multi-criteria sorting problems (IRIS)/ELECTRE TRI
methodology. IRIS/ELECTRE TRI methodology assists decision makers
to incorporate their preferences, and it is suggested that IRIS/ELECTRE
TRI methodology can be utilized as complementary to DEA [127].
Sánchez-Lozano et al. [83] used GIS to identify the suitable sites for
photovoltaic solar farms in the southeast of Spain. The combination of
ELECTRE-TRI method and IRIS were applied to classify the alternative
sites with respect to several criteria on climatology, location, orography
and environment [83]. In the study of Wu et al. [53], an ELECTRE-III
based approach was proposed to select offshore wind farm site in the
presence of multiple decision makers and under incomplete information
environment. In the paper, various criteria and sub-criteria were
identified to eliminate eligible areas and determine potential alter-
natives for offshore wind power station site. The intuitionistic fuzzy sets
were employed to represent the degree of satisfaction and dissatisfac-
tion of the potential sites with respect to identified criteria. Moreover,
the generalized intuitionistic fuzzy ordered weighted geometric inter-
action averaging (GIFWGIA) operator was used to cope with the in-
teraction issue. The likelihood-based outranking relationship was
adopted to identify preference relations. The valued outranking rela-
tions and the likelihood-based pairwise comparisons prevented loss of
information [53].
E. Ilbahar, et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Fig. 3. The flowchart of the paper selection and elimination process.

3.5. Other methods fuzzy multi-objective optimization by ratio analysis (MULTIMOORA),

and adaptive conjoint analysis. A multi-criteria decision making fra-
Other methods involve the methods that are relatively less preferred mework was proposed to prioritize energy crops for sustainable energy
for the renewable energy evaluation such as DEMATEL, PROMETHEE, crop selection [94]. The sustainability of energy crops was examined

26
E. Ilbahar, et al.
with regards to photosynthesis type, soil carbon sequestration, water
adaptation, N input requirement, erosion control, dry mass and energy
yield. The proposed framework was based on fuzzy multi-objective
optimization by ratio analysis (MULTIMOORA) method dealing with
imprecise information and linguistic terms. Luthra et al. [54] proposed
a fuzzy DEMATEL method to examine the influences and influential
interactions among the enablers of India's current solar power devel-
opments. The fuzzy sets theory was employed to deal with human
subjectivity whereas DEMATEL was used to comprehend and to ex-
amine the causal interactions among the enablers of solar power de-
velopments. Cutz et al. [52] aimed at evaluating the potential in bio-
mass resources available in Central America and discussing this
potential in terms of forecasted energy needs. While technical, eco-
nomic, environmental and socio-political aspects were taken into con-
sideration, a Fuzzy MADM method was developed to determine biomass
conversion technologies that were suitable for this region. Aydin et al.
[117] proposed a decision support system which including GIS tools to
select the most suitable location for installing wind turbines. Wind
energy potential and environmental fitness/acceptability were identi-
fied as evaluation criteria for the site selection process. Fuzzy sets and
aggregator operators such as “and”, “or”, and “order weighted aver-
aging” were employed to obtain an overall environmental performance
index for each alternative location and to assess wind energy systems.
Aydin et al. [98] used ordered weighted averaging algorithm (OWA) to
select an appropriate site for a hybrid wind solar-PV renewable energy
system based on environmental acceptability and economic feasibility.
In the study of Hawila et al. [80], renewable energy readiness of several
countries was assessed by using weighted sum method. The criteria
including energy access, market infrastructure, system requirements,
country overall infrastructure, assessment of natural resources, mac-
roeconomic environment, financial market development, key policies,
general institutions, technical and commercial skills, technology
adaptiveness and diffusion, awareness among consumers, investors and
decision makers were used for this assessment. Adaptive conjoint ana-
lysis was used by Masini and Menichetti [102] to derive preferences of
investors on renewable energy investments. Instead of asking direct
questions on the desirability of particular attribute levels, adaptive
conjoint analysis identified attribute utilities from the trade-off deci-
sions of respondents. In the paper, conjoint analysis was found to be a
quite effective method to imitate real life decision making process.
Troldborg et al. [76] aimed at assessing and ranking renewable energy
technologies in Scotland by taking technical, environmental and socio-
economic criteria into consideration. PROMETHEE method was utilized
with Monte Carlo simulation to account for the uncertainty in the cri-
teria values and to provide a probabilistic ranking of the renewable
energy technologies. Alsayed et al. [77] utilized PROMETHEE along
with Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm to design hybrid power gen-
eration systems. Zhang [139] proposed an interval-valued intuitionistic
fuzzy behavioral MADM method considering the behavioral char-
acteristics of the decision maker to select the optimal photovoltaic cells.
Bagocius et al. [140] utilized the weighted aggregated sum product
assessment (WASPAS) method to rank the feasible location areas for
wind farms and to evaluate the wind turbines types in the Baltic Sea
offshore area.
4. Analysis of published papers
Approximately 150 academic papers using MADM techniques to
solve renewable energy problems and published in international jour-
nals with science citation index/expanded, are examined to provide an
analysis of the literature, and to identify patterns or trends. In the scope
of this paper, Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct databases are
used. A flowchart reflecting our selection and elimination process is
given in Fig. 3. Moreover, the following keywords are used in the search
process: renewable energy utilization; renewable energy exploitation;
renewable energy utilization & Multiple attribute decision making
27
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
methods; renewable energy & fuzzy modelling; renewable energy &
AHP; renewable energy & ANP; renewable energy & TOPSIS; renewable
energy & ELECTRE; renewable energy & VIKOR; renewable energy &
PROMETHEE; renewable energy & SAW; renewable energy & DE-
MATEL; renewable energy & WPM.
In previously conducted review studies on MADM methods
[141,142] analyses are made based on authors, publication date,
country of origin, methods, and type of research. In this study, the
detailed analysis has been presented on the most preferred MADM
techniques in the field of renewable energy. The distribution of these
studies over the years is examined to identify patterns, trends and gaps.
Moreover, a classification of the studies based on application purposes
is provided. Furthermore, the criteria used in these studies with respect
to their application purposes and country of origin are examined. As
expected, the studies on renewable energy have increased year by year
together with the increasing importance of renewable energy ex-
ploitation. Consequently, studies utilizing MADM methods in the con-
cept of renewable energy have increased as well. This upward trend is
exhibited in Fig. 4.
Several methods have been adopted throughout the literature to
provide a comprehensive solution to the renewable energy problems. In
the literature, AHP, ANP, ELECTRE and TOPSIS have come into the
forefront as the most commonly used methods. Not only these methods
but also their various combinations have been employed in renewable
energy modelling. When the number of studies using these MADM
methods over the years is examined, it is seen that AHP is the most used
method over the years, and there is a distinct upward trend in the
utilization of AHP for renewable energy exploitation. The use of
ELECTRE, TOPSIS and other MADM methods has also increased over
the years although it is a lesser extent than AHP. Although the number
of studies using MADM methods for the exploitation of renewable en-
ergy has increased over the year, the usage percentages of these
methods given in Fig. 5 did not present such a pattern.
MADM methods have been utilized for various purposes, and these
purposes are categorized into five main groups as follows: i. ‘Evaluation
of Renewable Energy Sources (ERES)’, ii. ‘Evaluation of Renewable
Energy Technologies (ERET)’, iii. ‘Evaluation of Renewable Energy
Facility Location (EREFL)’, iv. ‘Evaluation of renewable energy projects
or investments (EREP)’, and v.’ Design of Renewable Energy Systems
(DRES)’. Table 2 presents the the studies with respect to their purposes.
It can be seen that MADM methods have been most commonly used for
site evaluation, followed by evaluation of renewable energy sources.
The application purposes and the corresponding method choices in
the literature are given in Table 3. From Table 3, it can be concluded
that AHP is the most preferred option for all kinds of purposes. The
second most preferred method for EREFL is ELECTRE, followed by
TOPSIS. ANP, VIKOR and DEMATEL are the third most preferred
method for site selection and alternative location evaluation. For ERES,
Fig. 4. Number of studies using MADM methods for renewable energy ex-
ploitation.
E. Ilbahar, et al.
Fig. 5. Distribution of the applied methods over the years.
TOPSIS is the second most preferred method, followed by ANP. For
ERET, TOPSIS and ANP are the second most preferred methods Fur-
thermore, ELECTRE, TOPSIS, PROMETHEE, DEMATEL and DELPHI
were utilized in none of the reviewed papers for EREP. The usage
percentage of fuzzy approaches for each purpose is calculated to de-
termine how often they are incorporated to studies. The percentages
were calculated by dividing the number of papers including a fuzzy
approach for each purpose to the total number of the papers. It is thus
possible to say that fuzzy approaches have been incorporated to studies
mostly to evaluate renewable energy sources. It is followed by the
evaluation of renewable energy technologies and the evaluation of
energy facility location, respectively. Fuzzy approaches are not adopted
for the evaluation of renewable energy projects or investments as much
as it is used for the others.
In the studies using MADM methods for the exploitation of renew-
able energy, various criteria have been employed throughout the lit-
erature. Tables 4–7 provide some common criteria used in the studies
with respect to their application purposes. Technological maturity, ef-
ficiency, reliability/sustainability, capital cost, operation and main-
tenance cost, public acceptance, job creation/welfare improvement,
emission reduction, land requirement, and safety are the common cri-
teria used for the evaluation of renewable energy sources. Capital cost,
operation and maintenance cost, levelized energy cost, capacity, effi-
ciency, job creation/welfare improvement, social acceptability, emis-
sion reduction, and land use are the common criteria employed for the
evaluation of renewable energy technologies. Slope, distance to roads,
residential areas, network, land use/area, and noise are the common
criteria utilized for the evaluation of renewable energy facility location.
For the evaluation of renewable energy projects, capacity, political
acceptability/policy related issues and emission reduction are com-
monly taken into consideration.
MADM methods have been utilized throughout the literature in
different scopes with respect to energy types. In other words, some
studies are carried out to analyze only one of the renewable energy
Table 2
Classification of studies based on application purposes.
Application Purpose Studies
Evaluation of Renewable [22,29,31,33,35,36,44,52,58,62,63,72,79,84,86,88,94,108,111–113,116,119,124,125,131,143,144]
Energy Sources (ERES)
Evaluation of Renewable [17,24,30,43,48,49,52,54,55,61,68,76,90,91,95,97,105,106,110,121,127,145–148]
Energy Technologies (ERET)
Evaluation of Energy Facility [14,15,21,23,27,28,32,34,38,39,45,50,51,53,56,57,64,66,69–71,73,74,78,81,83,92,93,96,98,101,107,109,113,117,136,137,149–157]
Location (EREFL)
Evaluation of Renewable Energy [16,18,37,40,41,47,89,99,100,102,114,118,120,122,128,158–160]
Projects or Investments (EREP)
Design of Renewable Energy [19,61,75,77,111,161]
Systems (DRES)
28
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
sources whereas some of the studies evaluate multiple energy sources to
choose among them or to determine the optimal combination of the
sources. Fig. 6 provides scopes of the studies with respect to energy
types. It can be seen that studies on solar and wind energy have in-
creased over the years. However, hydro, geothermal energy, and
bioenergy seem to have been studied less frequently over the years.
Fig. 7 presents the percentages of studies with respect to each energy
type. In other words, 21%, 27%, 9%, 1%, 4%, 2% and 36% of the
studies from 2009 to 2018 focused on solar, wind, bioenergy, geo-
thermal, hydro, waste, and multiple energy source evaluation, respec-
tively.
Fig. 8 displays the studies using MADM techniques on renewable
energy exploitation with respect to countries. The countries, Turkey,
Spain, USA, UK, Iran, India, China, Republic of Korea, and Lithuania,
came to the forefront with the number of studies they have conducted.
Turkey has the highest percentage for the use of MADM methods to
exploit renewable energy sources, and followed by China, Spain, USA,
Iran, India, Lithuania and UK with 10%, 10%, 8%, 7%, 5%, 5%, and
5%, respectively.
There are many advantages of using AHP in renewable and sus-
tainable energy studies. Most importantly, it is easy to use and scalable,
so it can be used for different types of renewable energy problems. It
can be easily adapted to many sized problems and it is not data in-
tensive. However, attention must be paid to the problems arising from
the interdependence between criteria and alternatives because it might
affect the final decision [162]. This weakness should be carefully con-
sidered in energy based decision making problems and criteria must be
determined so that there is no the interdependence between them. In
ELECTRE, the weaknesses and strengths of the alternatives might not be
directly specified [162]. Since it is an outranking method, it is not clear
that how bad the second best alternative is from the first one. It might
be quite important to know the difference between the first best and the
second best alternatives, especially for the investment related renew-
able and sustainable energy problems. If the difference is the first best
and the second best alternatives are very low, there may be situations
where it is more reasonable and strategic to choose the second best
alternative. However, when this difference is not known, it would not
be possible to make such a choice. TOPSIS is also very suitable for the
use of sustainable energy problems because it has a simple process and
procedure complexity remains the same regardless of the increase in the
number of attributes [162]. Since most of the renewable energy pro-
blems involve various attributes, it is quite advantageous to use TOPSIS
for such problems. However, if there is a correlation between attributes,
it is better not to prefer TOPSIS because Euclidean Distance employed
in TOPSIS does not take the correlation of attributes into account [162].
5. Conclusion
The effective utilization of renewable energy sources is extremely
significant in order to decrease the adverse effects of conventional fuel
exploitation. This paper provides the studies that use MADM methods
 E. Ilbahar, et al.

Table 3
Application purpose and corresponding method choice in the literature.
Applicati- MADM Methods Integrated
on Approaches
Purpose

AHP ANP ELECTRE TOPSIS PROMET- VIKOR DEMATEL DELPHI OTHER FUZZY OTHER
HEE SETS

ERES [31,33,35,44,58- [29,36,72,84] [ [111] [31,36,72,108,113] [125] [22,72] [36] [86] [63,86,94, [22,29,31, [29,84,
,62,79,88, 124,131] 36,52,63, 112,144]
112,131] 88,94,108]
[108,113,116, [113,116,
119,124,144] 119,124,
144]
ERET [30,49,61,91, [17,24,95,105] [43] [68,121] [76] [24,54] [30,55] [48,49,68, [30,52,54, [55,76,
97,106,110] 90,97,110] 68,106, 95,106]
110,121]
EREFL [14,21,28,32, [23,27,34,73,85] [53,57,70,73] [23,38,45,57,74] [28] [27,96,115] [15,34,73,85] [15,38,66, 15, 23, 27, [27,85]
38,39,50,56,64, [74,81–83,87] [93,107,113] 70,83,87, 28, 38, 45,

29
69,71,78] 98,101, 53, 73, 74]
[45,51,92,93, 109,117] [85,107,
107,113] 113,115]
[57,70,74,
109,115]
EREP [16,18,37,89, [89,118] [37,114] [40] [47,100, [100,120, [16,102]
99,100,114, 102,120] 122]
118,120,
122,128]
DRES [19,61,75] [111] [77]
Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33
E. Ilbahar, et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 25 (2019) 18–33

Table 4
Common criteria considered in ERES studies.
Criteria Studies

Technological [33,44,63,79,84,88,108,112,116,119,124,125]
Maturity
Efficiency [29,44,62,79,113,143]
Reliability/ [33,44,62,79,84,88,108,112,119,124,143]
Sustainability
Capital cost [33,44,58,63,79,84,86,88,108,112,113,116,119,124,125]
O&M cost [33,44,84,86,108,112,113,125]
Public acceptance [33,44,79,84,86,88,108,113,119,124,125]
Job creation/ [44,62,63,79,84,86,88,108,113,116,119,124,125]
Welfare
improvement
Emission reduction [33,44,62,63,79,88,108,111,113,116,119,124,125,143]
Land requirement [44,63,79,86,88,108,113,116,119,124,143]
Safety [29,33,44,62,63]

Table 5 Fig. 6. Study scopes over the years.

Common criteria considered in ERET studies.
Criteria Studies

Capital cost [49,68,105,106,121]

O&M cost [68,91,105,106,121]
Levelized energy cost [76,121,149]
Capacity [49,68,91,105]
Efficiency [68,91,105,147]
Job creation/Welfare improvement [49,68,91,105]
Social acceptability [49,76,105,147]
Emission reduction [43,49,68,76,147]
Land use [68,76,105,106,121]

Table 6
Common criteria considered in EREP studies.
Criteria Studies

capacity [47,100,128] Fig. 7. Scope of the studies in the literature with respect to energy type.
political acceptability/policy related issues [41,89,122]
emission reduction [47,114,122,159]

in the renewable energy field. The review of about 150 studies em-
ploying MADM methods in the field of renewable and sustainable en-
ergy provides an insight on for what purpose these methods can be
adopted, and in the presence of which factors they are preferred. In the
paper, the detailed analyses have been presented on the most con-
sidered renewable energy alternatives and the most preferred MADM
techniques for their evaluation. The distribution of these studies over
the years is also examined to identify patterns, trends, and gaps.
Moreover, the classification of the studies based on application pur-
poses is given. An analysis on the preferred MADM methods with re-
spect to application purposes is presented. The criteria used in the
studies with respect to their application purposes and country of origin
of the studies are examined. Fig. 8. Renewable energy studies by country.

Table 7
Common criteria considered in EREFL studies.
Criteria Studies

Slope [45,50,51,57,64,66,70,74,81,83,87,92,93,149]
Distance from roads [45,51,57,64,66,70,71,74,81,83,87,92,93,107,150]
Distance from residental areas [45,51,57,64,70,71,73,74,81,83,87,93,107,117,150]
Distance from network [38, 45, 51, 53, 57, 70, 71, 73, 74, 78, 81, 83, 87, 92, 93, 107, 150, 151]
land use/area [45,50,51,57,64,66,74,83,87,92,93,107]
Noise issue [56,73,85,150]

30
E. Ilbahar, et al.
Following conclusions are drawn from the detailed analysis: As it
was expected, the number of papers using MADM methods for the re-
newable energy exploitation has increased year by year. In the litera-
ture, AHP, ANP, ELECTRE and TOPSIS have come into the forefront as
the most widely employed methods. Not only these methods but also
their various combinations have been utilized. Moreover, fuzzy sets
have been commonly incorporated to the studies. MADM methods have
been utilized for various purposes in the literature which are classified
in this paper as i. ‘Evaluation of Renewable Energy Sources (ERES)’, ii.
‘Evaluation of Renewable Energy Technologies (ERET)’, iii. ‘Evaluation of
Renewable Energy Facility Location (EREFL)’, iv.’ Evaluation of renewable
energy projects or investments (EREP)’, and v. ‘Design of Renewable Energy
Systems (DRES)’. There are a few studies in the literature for the pur-
pose of EREP and DRES. Thus, these topics should be handled by the
researchers in the future. In this paper, the application purposes and the
corresponding method choices are examined. It can be seen that AHP is
the most preferred option for all kinds of purposes. In addition, it is
shown that AHP is becoming more popular to solve various renewable
energy problems. However, outranking methods (ELECTRE and PRO-
METHEE) are rarely used for the purpose of EREP. It is indicated that
the studies on solar and wind energy have increased over the years. On
the other hand, hydro, geothermal energy, and bioenergy seem to have
been studied less frequently over the years. This study has emphasized
that renewable energy exploitation is a quite suitable topic to use
MADM methods, and MADM is a useful tool to solve renewable and
sustainable energy problems with its great applicability.
6. Limitations and future suggestions
This study will be helpful for researchers and practitioners requiring
a comprehensive analysis on the exploitation of renewable energy,
especially for decisions on choosing the appropriate combination of
renewable energy sources or technologies, design and evaluation of
renewable energy projects, and feasibility assessment of a renewable
energy facility. The most common methods and criteria used for these
kinds of decisions are analyzed. The limitation of this study is that some
studies might have a different objective from the purposes analyzed in
this study. Therefore, the common methods and criteria utilized for
other purposes can be extended in the future. For further research,
relatively new MADM techniques such as ARAS, MOORA and EDAS
might be used in this field. Furthermore, the efficiency of use of dif-
ferent MADM methods on renewable energy studies can be discussed by
utilizing multiple methods on applications.
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