A Comprehensive Overview of Multicriteria Evaluations of Renewable Energy Projects

Renewable energy projects (REPs) are vital to address the world's expanding electricity demand while mitigating the environmental challenges associated with conventional sources of energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the evaluation of renewable energy projects using a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach. First, we present the environmental challenges associated with renewable energy projects and introduce the five flagship technologies in the field, namely wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydropower, with a focus on different aspects of evaluation. Next, we discuss the most frequent criteria and sub-criteria used in the domain, and also the incorporation of fuzzy set theory in order to improve the accuracy and handle the uncertainties in the evaluation process. As such, our contribution provides valuable insights for decision-makers and researchers involved in the evaluation of renewable energy projects using multicriteria decision-making-based methods.