MCDM Analysis of Renewable and Conventional Energy Power Plants in Pakistan

Continued economic growth of any country requires a sustainable energy supply. Pakistan's energy sector is suffering from a serious energy crisis from the past two decades and mainly depends on conventional energy sources, which are costly and unsustainable. Moreover, electricity production across the country is largely dependent on oil and gas products while the utility of renewable energy resources is dismal. To evaluate a country's energy system is a complex analysis that can be defined as a multi-dimensional problem of different alternatives and its criteria. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making Analysis tool provides a reliable methodology to rank different energy alternatives on the basis of selected criteria. In this paper, renewable and conventional energy power plants are analyzed on the basis of actual data of technical, economic and environmental criteria. The AHP results of this study show that the most favorable and sustainable energy plants for electricity production in terms of the above criteria and sub-criteria are renewable power plants followed by conventional power plants.