Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Based Economic Analysis of Solar PV System with Respect to Performance Investigation for Indian Market

• Published in: Sustainability Vol. 9; no. 5; p. 820
• Main Authors: K., Padmanathan, Govindarajan, Uma, K. Ramachandaramurthy, Vigna, T., Sudar Oli Selvi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 17.05.2017
• Subjects: Decision making; economic analysis; electricity; electricity generation; Energy industry; investment planning; life cycle costing; markets; multi-criteria decision making; Photovoltaic cells; solar collectors; solar energy; Sustainability
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su9050820

Energy market is subject to changing energy demands on a daily basis. The increasing demand for energy necessitates the use of renewable sources and promotes decentralized generation. Specifically, solar PV is preferred in the energy market to meet the increasing energy demand. New approaches are preferred in the economic analysis to simulate multiple actor interplays and intermittent behavior in order to predict the increasing complexity in solar PV. In the Indian society, there are various myths and perceptions regarding economics of electricity generated through solar PV system. Therefore, this paper will address the various Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and economic analysis for all types of consumers in the Indian electricity market. A detailed economic and performance study is made by considering ten categories and seven sub categories of investment plan for 1 MW solar projects using Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied to support the decision.