Decision making in the renewable energy industry involves an increasingly complex constellation of factors and a growing range of input. This volume shows how multi-criteria techniques provide ...decision makers with a valuable and inclusive methodology.
The growing concern in the negative effects of fossil fuels on the environment has forced a more intensive use of Renewable Energy sources which are considered an important solution to the large ...atmospheric pollution caused from fossil fuel combustion. In the electricity-generating industry, due to the high costs associated with the construction and operation of plants and the regulations that enforce productivity evaluations, efficiency is a key managerial concept. DEA is a non-parametric method which produces detailed information on the efficiency of a unit, to be measured without any assumptions regarding the functional form of the production function. In this paper, the efficiency of 13 Renewable Energy technologies is evaluated through a Multiple Criteria Data Envelopment Analysis (MCDEA) model. Two additional criterion, the minsum and minimax criterion, are included in the model which are the most restrictive than that defined in the classical DEA. The results show that the only Decision Making Unit rated as efficient is the Windpower 10 ≤
P ≤ 50 MW technology and it can be considered the only non-dominated solution.
► We evaluate the efficiency of 13 Renewable Energy technologies. ► We use a Multiple Criteria Data Envelopment Analysis model. ► We include two more restrictive criteria than that defined in the classical DEA. ► Technologies efficient under DEA prove to be inefficient under the MCDEA model.
Sustainable development has become an important part of international and national approaches to integrate economic, environmental, social and ethical considerations so that a good quality of life ...can be enjoyed by current and future generations for as long as possible. However, nowadays sustainable development is threatened by industrial pollution emissions which cause serious environmental problems. Due to a lack of adequate quantitative models for environmental policy analysis, there is a strong need for analytical models in order to know the effects of environmental policies. In the present paper, a goal programming model, based on an environmental/input–output linear programming model, is developed and applied to the Spanish economy. The model combines relations between economic, energy, social and environmental effects, providing valuable information for policy-makers in order to define and examine the different goals that must be implemented to reach sustainability.
► In this paper a goal programming model is developed. ► The model considers environmental, energy, social and economic goals. ► The model shows the effects of a reduction in greenhouse gasses emission and energy requirements. ► The model is applied to the Spanish economy.
AbstractContractors play a vital role in the overall performance of a project. Selecting the right contractor for the right project is the most crucial challenge for any construction client. Numerous ...and often conflicting objectives and alternatives, such as tender price, completion date, and experience, need to be considered. Recently, to assist owners in making decisions, there has been a trend away from a “lowest-price wins” principle and subjective judgement to a multicriteria selection approach in the selection of contractors for construction projects. In the autonomous region of Cantabria, in the north of Spain, increased project complexity and higher requirements have recently demanded the use of multicriteria decision-making methods for contractor selection. With this aim, two multicriteria decision methods, the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and vlsekriterijumska optimizacija I kompromisno resenje (VIKOR) methods, are applied to the selection of a contractor for the road building project “La Braguía” undertaken during 2002. The results show that one of the contractors is the highest ranked by both methods. Being the highest ranked alternative by the TOPSIS method indicates that this contractor is the best in terms of the ranking index. In addition, being the highest ranked alternative by the VIKOR method indicates that it is the closest to the ideal solution.
Time, cost, quality and safety, are the four critical elements that contribute to project success. Traditionally, literature has focused on analysing only time and cost. Subsequently, other ...multi-objective optimization methods developed to optimize time, cost, quality or safety have been developed. New types of contracting methods designed by governments, included maximizing construction quality while minimizing its time and cost. Recently, due to the fact that the construction industry suffers from more accidents of greater severity than other industrial sectors, safety has become one of the four critical elements that contribute to project success. The project scheduling literature largely concentrates on the generation of a precedence and resource feasible schedule that optimizes the scheduling objective and that should serve as a baseline schedule for executing the project. However, these models do not allow to analyse alternative work plans that consider the trade-offs between time, cost, quality, and safety. In this paper, an integer linear programming problem is applied to a decision-CPM network in order to obtain an overall optimum including time, cost, quality and safety in a road building project. Using this type of model, the effects of alternative methods of performing the tasks can be considered and a greater degree of interaction between the planning and scheduling phases of a project is obtained.
AbstractProject managers are usually faced with decision environments in which there are a number of incommensurable and often conflicting objectives such as minimizing the total project costs, ...meeting a certain contracted date, conflicting expenses on a fixed budget, and ensuring that certain activities achieve certain quality levels. Furthermore, in some real-world situations, it may be difficult to get precise information about activity durations or cost. In these complex and uncertain environments in which numerous factors need to be considered, the ability to make sound decisions is very important to the success of a project. Multicriteria decision-making methods are a class of operations research models that deal with the process of making decisions in the presence of multiple objectives. This paper proposes the use of the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) method under fuzzy environments in order to determine the critical path of a network, considering not only time but also cost, quality, and safety criteria.
The capacity expansion planning problem of the renewable energy industry involves decisions regarding the optimal mix of different plant types, locations where each plant should be built, and ...capacity expansion decisions over the planning horizon for each plant. The aim of this paper is to develop a goal programming model, based on a multi-source multi-sink network, in order to locate five renewable energy plants for electric generation in five places located in the autonomous region of Cantabria, in the north of Spain. As different types of plants can be placed in each location, the goal is to locate one plant in each place, maximizing the number of plants that are matched with comparable locations, in a way that the total deviations from goals are minimized.
Time, cost and quality are the three factors that play a significant role in the planning and controlling of construction projects. The main barriers for their achievement are the changes in the ...project environment necessitating cost, time, and quality trade-offs. Literature has mainly focused on analyzing time and cost with little or no reported research focusing on models for optimizing construction time, cost, and quality jointly. Government agencies have recently started using new types of contracting methods which have placed an increasing pressure on decision makers in the construction industry to search for an optimal/near optimal resource utilization plan that minimizes construction cost and time while maximizing its quality. In this paper, a 0-1 Integer Programming model which enables meeting quality output standards and time and budget objectives respectively is developed. The clever use of binary variables allows us to solve many interesting and difficult problems and our ability to model complex problems increases tremendously when we use binary variables. A version of the model to minimize time meeting quality and cost objectives is applied to a road building project. Two alternatives versions of the model which enable to minimize cost meeting quality and time and to maximize quality meeting time and cost, are shown in an Appendix.
Approximately every 3 or 4 years, vessels have to be drydocked, either in accordance with specific rule requirements or to gain an overall view of the vessel’s condition. These drydockings can incur ...considerable expense because they involve the inspection, overhaul, and, where necessary, the modification of existing equipment. It is imperative for ship managers and operators to monitor and control drydockings because lower drydocking costs do not just affect sound financial performance, but are also a requirement for it. This article proposes a method for forecasting the actual cost and the cost at completion of vessel drydockings based on the Gray system theory. Results show that the accuracy of the GM (1,1) forecasting model is highly efficient.
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