Selection of the Most Suitable Renewable Energy Alternative For Štrpce Municipality

Energy is a prerequisite for the development of today's companies, municipalities and whole societies. Renewable energy sources (RES) are gaining increasing importance and share in the energy systems of many countries. But, selection among different renewable energy sources request analyzing numerous criteria, stakeholders’ interests, costs, legal regulations etc. For this reason, multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) are often used for the selection of renewable energy alternatives. There are numerous MCDM methods that are used in literature and practice to select the most suitable renewable energy alternative. In this paper, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to assess four renewable energy alternatives (hydro, wind, photovoltaic and biomass) in Štrpce municipality. Also, there are numerous criteria in the literature that are used to select renewable energy alternatives. In this paper six criteria are used: investment, efficiency, land requirements, GHG emissions, price of energy and operation and maintenance jobs. According to obtained results, the hydro alternative is ranked first.