Abstract
The transformation of the power generation industry from coal-based to more sustainable energy sources is an irreversible trend. In China, the coal-fired power plant, as the main electric power supply facility at present, needs to know its own sustainability level to face the future competition. A hybrid multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model is proposed in this paper to assess the sustainability levels of the existing Chinese coal-fired power units. The areal grey relational analysis (AGRA) method is involved in the hybrid model, and a combined weighting method is used to determine the priorities of the criteria. The combining weight fuses the fuzzy rough set (FRS) and entropy objective weighting method together with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) subjective weighting method by game theory. Moreover, an AHP weighting uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is introduced to measure the uncertainty of the results, and a 95 percent confidence interval (CI) is defined as the uncertainty measurement of the alternatives. A case study about eight coal-fired power units is carried out with a criteria system, which contains five aspects in an operational perspective, such as the flexibility, economic, environmental, reliability and technical criterion. The sustainability assessment is performed at the unit level, and the results give a priority rank of the eight alternatives; additionally, the uncertainty analysis supplies the extra information from a statistical perspective. This work expands a novel hybrid MCDM method to the sustainability assessment of the power generation systems, and it may be a benefit to the energy enterprises in assessing the sustainability at the unit level and enhance its ability in future sustainable development.
Highlights
Nowadays, people have realized the importance of the sustainability of energy utilization with the depletion of fossil fuel and global warming [1,2]
Step 5: We perform the sustainability assessment with the hybrid multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model that we proposed in Section 2 B times using the B group’s analytic hierarchy process (AHP) weights generated from Step 4 correspondingly
The Monte Carlo (MC) method is used in the AHP process to treat the imprecise or incomplete pairwise comparison matrix, which is the work that ought to be completed by the experts in the classical AHP methSotdep[567:,W58e,6a0n,6a7ly].zHe tohweerveesur,ltthveecptourrspoofseeawche ainltterrondauticveedwthiteh MthCe -sAtaHtiPstimcaeltmhoedthiondtsh, iis.e.p,agpiveirnigs omuatitnhley ptooiinlltussotfra0t.e02t5hefrsaecntisleitiavnidty0o.9f7t5hefraascstielses, mtheenwt ridesthulotsf twheith95t%hecsotnoficdheanstciec iAnHterPvwalsei(gChIt)safnrdomthea pstraotbisatbicilailtypedrissptreibctuivtieo.nTsh. e algorithm is shown in Figure 4 and it is described as follows
Summary
People have realized the importance of the sustainability of energy utilization with the depletion of fossil fuel and global warming [1,2]. There is no doubt that it is significant to discuss the sustainability of the energy system from a broad perspective with the consideration of the interaction with human society, but it is worthy to research the sustainability of specific power generation systems from a smaller perspective, such as the sustainability evaluation of the coal-fired power unit at the equipment level. For the existing coal-fired power units of China, improving their operational flexibility is the most practical option at present for the systematic sustainable energy transition [4,21,22]. We develop a hybrid MCDM model to evaluate the sustainability of the coal-fired power units. We establish a multi-criteria evaluation system to perform the sustainability assessment at the power unit level, which considers five criterion categories including flexibility, economic, environmental, reliability and the technical index and with sub-criteria under every criterion category, respectively. The symbols used in this paper are listed in the Nomenclature Section
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