Performance evaluation for sustainability of wind energy project using improved multi-criteria decision-making method

Wind power can be an efficient way to alleviate energy shortage and environmental pollution, and to realize sustainable development in terms of energy generation. The sustainability assessment of a wind project among its alternatives is a complex task that cannot be solely simplified to environmental or economic feasibility. It requires the consideration of its technological and social aspects as well as other circumstances. This paper proposes a new method for selecting the most sustainable wind projects. The method is based on multi-criteria decision-making techniques. The analytic hierarchy process and entropy weight method are combined to determine the weights of evaluation indexes, and an innovative index-weight optimization method based on the Lagrange conditional extremum algorithm. The fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution is applied to rank wind project alternatives considering functionality and proportionality of the system. Moreover, the sensitive analysis is applied to verify the robustness of the proposed method. The applicability of the method is demonstrated on a case study from China, where three main wind projects are analytically compared and ranked. The results indicated that the sustainable level of calculated wind power can provide a reference point for the planning and operation of the wind project. The results show that the proposed method is of both theoretical significance and practical application in engineering.