Towards Temporal Multi-Criteria Assessment of Sustainable RES Exploitation in European Countries

This paper aims to introduce a novel Temporal SWARA-SPOTIS method for multi-criteria temporal assessment. The proposed method combines the Step-Wise Weights Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method for determining the significance values of particular periods and the Stable Preference Ordering Towards Ideal Solution (SPOTIS) method for the multi-criteria assessment. The developed method was applied for assessing the sustainable use of renewable energy sources (RES) by European countries in various branches of the economy and industry, considering multiple criteria and the dynamics of results change over time. The application of the proposed method is presented in an illustrative example covering the assessment of 30 selected European countries over the five years 2015-2019. The presented approach proved its usefulness in the problem investigated and provided reliable results indicating that the best-scored countries regarding sustainable use of RES are dominantly the Nordic countries.