Multicriteria Decision Making and Its Application in Geothermal Power Project

The International Energy Agency (IEA) assesses Vietnam as the second largest electricity user in Southeast Asia. The energy consumption growth rate in the region is one of the fastest in the world, with demand growing at a steady 6% per year for the past 20 years. Within the context that domestic fossil fuel production cannot keep up with demand and climate change is occurring, to avoid depending on imported energy to operate the power system, the Government of Vietnam has turned to developing renewable energy. The potential for developing geothermal energy in Vietnam is promising with more than 200 sources of water around 40 to 100 degrees C, which is sufficient for the development of geothermal energy projects. Today, a method to conserve natural resources and invest in renewable energy is provided by the government by controlling the importation of gas and coal while investing in building geothermal power plants. One of the hardest problems, however, is determining a suitable place to construct a geothermal power plant (GPP). For this main reason, in the hope of solving this problem, the author has proposed a decision-making model that utilizes a fuzzy set under multi-criteria conditions. It uses two methods, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) followed by Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS), for a GPP site selection decision. The FAHP model is first used to determine the weights of each criterion and sub-criterion. Then, the ranking of each alternative is calculated by the WASPAS model. A final alternative is determined to be the best solution based on calculations from the methods above for identifying suitable locations for a GPP. This research has contributed a method of using a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model for determining a suitable location selection. This contribution also shows a development of flexibility towards decision making for other renewable energy projects worldwide.