Use of MCDM Techniques for Renewable Energy Policy & Decision-Making Problems: A Systematic Review

Energy consumption has become an increasingly alarming issue and is widely discussed among policy makers today concerned about the allocation of the limited resources that are left. This has prompted researchers to search for new, more experimental, inexhaustible sources of energy that can be sustained for the foreseeable future. At this point, many agree that renewable energy is the way forward. The crux of the issue however lies in what source should be used, which technology should be adopted and what factors associated with generation, transmission and distribution should be considered in order to create the most robust energy policy applicable on a large scale but with enough room to be reinterpreted and adapted to a particular country or business. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques are effective tools to help researchers solve complex decision-making problems taking multiple conditions and criteria into account to provide the best alternative available. Analysing studies as per authors, publication year, document type, statistics and graphical representations, country of origin and source of publication can be advantageous for researchers in the decision-making field, allowing them to create a timeline tracing the application of MCDM techniques in the field while also building and adding to this area of research. This study has reviewed 202 research papers to analyse existing research, identify research gaps and propose new future research opportunities in the area of energy policy formulation for solving decision-making problems through the application of MCDM techniques.