Support of decision-making on TPP construction site selection based on the threshold method of multicriteria analysis

The purpose of this article is to consider the problem of decision-making on the location of a thermal power plant in an area with decentralized power supply. The task of choosing the location of any power plant traditionally consists of two main stages - selection of the power plant location and the construction site. The last stage involves the specification of the plant capacity. The first stage is the most difficult due to such factors as multi-criteria, a high degree of ambiguity of information, weak structuring. In particular, the location selection is complicated by the need for preliminary decision-making on further aspects of the problem including site selection and plant capacity. To determine the best location of the power plant a multi-criteria task is formulated with the allocation of two levels of alternatives - locations and implementation options of the power plant. As the analysis conditions differ on each of the levels it is proposed to use two methods of the multicriteria analysis. The methods of two-level multicriteria analysis of alternatives developed with the participation of the author involves the use of two methods of the multicriteria analysis. These are finding of the multicriteria utility and hierarchy analysis. The latter is easy to use and has a wide practical approbation on real decision-making problems but its application involves a "one-time", a priori mental structuring of preferences of the decision-maker in relation to alternatives and evaluation criteria. In cases when the decision-maker believes that the best strategy for solving the problem of multicriteria choice would be the gradual selection of non-dominant alternatives and elimination of dominant ones, the method of hierarchy analysis should be replaced. This article focuses on the ELECTRE I method used at the second level of analysis - it is the first method of the ELECTRE threshold method family. The article provides an example of choosing the location of a thermal power plant in the area with decentralized power supply. To this end, the objectives and criteria of the selection task are defined at two levels of analysis. The criteria characterizing the objectives are described as well as each location point of the thermal power plant. Further, the analysis is carried out using MAUT and ELECTRE I methods. In conclusion, the results are discussed, the effect of individual factors on the comparison result is considered.

system analysis in power engineering, multicriteria, multicriteria utility theory, threshold method of the multicriteria analysis, power plant location, decentralized power supply