AHP-Assisted Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model for Planning of Microgrids

The planning stage of any project, could it be for an industry, a commercial or energy supply system, has crucial significance and involves judicious contribution from field experts to decision makers (DM). The objective of this paper is presenting a model for planning of energy sources for microgrid using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) based on analytic hierarchic process (AHP) approach. For developing a model, an educational institution’s electrical energy load demand has been considered as reference. In this assessment, the main-utility grid as the primary source of electricity, alongside conventional sources like diesel generator (DG), gas-based combined heat-and-power (CHP) with absorption chiller to meet cooling demand of facility is taken into account. Moreover, proven and comparatively most environmentally friendly renewable energy sources, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) together with battery energy storage system (BESS) have been taken into account. Moreover, the assessment and evaluation for prioritization of energy sources based on critical criteria or attributes and their associated sub-criteria have been judged to make decision. In this model, most of the critically influencing criteria, such as economic, technical, structural, operational and maintenance, environmental and societal aspects are being focused on. In total, nine alternatives- combinations of grid and other energy source(s)-are identified to form the microgrid. The weight score for each combination of sources is computed for each of the 22 criteria and could be presented DMs to enlist priority of alternatives to choose from.