Simultaneous evaluation of criteria and alternatives method-based site selection for solar hydrogen production plant in Inner Mongolia, China

In the context of achieving carbon neutrality, China's demand for renewable energy continues to grow, with the development of solar energy attracting widespread attention. Aiming at the problem that solar energy is not accessible at all times and the storage of excess power, this paper proposes a model for siting a solar hydrogen plant in Inner Mongolia based on Simultaneous Evaluation of Criteria and Alternatives (SECA). Firstly, considering the uniqueness of solar hydrogen production projects (SHPPs), we incorporate the criteria of hydrogen production capacity and local finance into the siting decision model. Secondly, the SECA method is employed to construct a nonlinear multi-objective optimization model, facilitating the direct determination of criterion weights and enhancing decision-making efficiency. Third, the convergence change of the coefficient beta in the SECA method is used to rank the candidate cities by solving the optimization model to produce stable results. Finally, this study verifies the validity of the model used through sensitivity and comparative analyses. The results show that Chifeng is the best location for solar hydrogen production considering the three most important factors are hydrogen production capacity (11.7%), average humidity (12.4%) and average temperature (14.46%).