Site Selection For solar PV Farm using Elimination and Choices Translating Reality (ELECTRE) In Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Abstract

This research focuses on selecting the optimal site for a solar photovoltaic (PV) farm in Saudi Arabia using Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. Method of Shannon Entropy for objective weighting and ELECTRE for alternative ranking is chosen to apply to the data. Five cities in Saudi Arabia are selected as potential site for Solar PV Farm. Five potential site, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abha, Dammam, and Al Ahsa were assessed based on five main criteria which are climatic, technical, economic, environmental, and social. In addition, for each criterion there were total of 16 sub-criteria that needs to be researched and evaluated. Some of the sub-criteria are solar irradiation, air temperature, temperature losses, payback period and population density. Each weight of sub-criteria will contribute in determining the ranking. In addition, method of CRITIC and TOPSIS are use as comparison for the result obtained. To validate the results between two methods, a sensitivity analysis was conducted using the Spearman Rank Correlation method to measure the degree of correlation between the rankings. Furthermore, this study highlights the effectiveness of integrating objective and subjective MCDM methods in addressing complex decision-making problems, such as solar PV farm site selection. The consistency of results across methods confirms the reliability of this hybrid approach in producing accurate and data-driven decisions.