Evaluation of renewable energy projects using multi-criteria approach

Many renewable energy (RE) projects cannot compete with conventional energy projects in terms of economics alone. However, if externality costs of competing technologies are carefully evaluated and taken into account the renewable energy projects are likely to be selected on economic basis. But the problem is the evaluation of externality costs which are not always easy to assess. One way to overcome this problem is to use multi-criteria approach instead of just economics as a single criterion. This paper presents the methodology and results of ranking RE alternatives based on several important criteria, for energy problems in an island in Oman where renewable resources can be used as supplementary energy supply.