Selection of the technologically most appropriate variant of the solar photovoltaic (PV) water supply system by using multi-criteria methods PROMETHEE and GAIA

Abstract

Nowadays, technical directors, operative engineers and managers in utility companies often meet with many variants of various types of water supply systems. Such a task is becoming complicated if solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is used as an energy source, due to its stochastic nature. This paper will present the use of the multi-criteria methods PROMETHEE and GAIA for the case of technological criteria. The aim of the paper is finding a technologically most appropriate variant of the observed urban water supply system (UWSS), given that the resulting solution differs according to the size of certain parts. It should be noted that the observed UWSS consists of PV generator and inverter (subsystem PV), pump station (subsystem PS) and water reservoir (subsystem W). In addition, this paper explains the scientifically innovative and applicable methodology for sizing the UWSS driven by PV energy.