The Use of Comparative Multi-Criteria Analysis Methods to Evaluate Criteria Weighting in Assessments of Onshore Wind Farm Projects

This research provides a comparative analysis of different methods of weighting criteria used in the investigation of site suitability of existing onshore wind farm projects. The ranking of this suitability was performed by integrating various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. The assessments of the site suitability of such projects considered several criteria, including wind velocity, distance from high-electricity grids, slope, distance from road networks, installed capacity, distance from protected areas, years of operation, and distance from settlements. Both subjective and objective methods were used to compute criteria weights and compare the results, which is the main contribution of the paper. This is especially significant, as criteria weighting in the wind farm siting literature is mainly focused on subjective methods, and therefore the criteria weights are provided by subjective judgments. In this study, 374 existing onshore wind farm projects in Greece served as alternatives, and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was employed to rank their suitability. The results show very high positive correlations in the rankings of both the evaluation criteria and the alternatives when subjective methods are used. Using objective weighting methods may provide a robust solution when expert judgement is missing, and the CRITIC method seems to present a high correlation with subjective MCDM methods regarding the ranking of alternatives. Various MCDM methods could be used to assess the weighting of criteria in challenges related to site suitability of renewable energy projects, as they can aid in the selection of the most sustainable sites while minimizing the downsides and maximizing the benefits of each method.