Multicriteria evaluation of heating choices for a new sustainable residential area

Abstract The city of Loviisa in Finland is planning a new sustainable residential area with a total of 240,000 m2 of residential houses and apartment buildings with services. The city wants to promote sustainable energy solutions in the area, considering various renewable energy forms for heating. The aim of this research is to evaluate which heating system would be best for a new single-family house when different technical, economic, environmental and usability criteria are considered. A group of experts evaluated the alternative heating systems with respect to the criteria. The citizens were involved with a questionnaire to provide preference information for different criteria. Altogether 11 alternative heating systems were evaluated in terms of 15 criteria. The Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) method was used to analyze this problem. The SMAA method was extended to handle a hierarchy of criteria and sub-criteria. The problem was analyzed in two phases based on expert evaluation for the criteria measurements first without the preference information from citizens and after this with the information. The results show that district heating produced by biomass based CHP is the most widely acceptable heating alternative followed by ground source heat pump both without and with preference information.

[1]  Kaisa Miettinen,et al.  Ordinal criteria in stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) , 2003, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[2]  Bilal Akash,et al.  Fuzzy sets programming to perform evaluation of solar systems in Jordan , 2001 .

[3]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  A multiple criteria decision model for analyzing and choosing among different development patterns for the Helsinki cargo harbor , 1999 .

[4]  Mihály Dombi,et al.  Sustainability assessment of renewable power and heat generation technologies , 2014 .

[5]  Mary Ann Curran,et al.  The international workshop on electricity data for life cycle inventories , 2005 .

[6]  Fatih Emre Boran,et al.  Multi-criteria Axiomatic Design Approach to Evaluate Sites for Grid-connected Photovoltaic Power Plants: A Case Study in Turkey , 2010 .

[7]  A. Azapagic,et al.  Sustainability assessment of energy systems: Integrating environmental, economic and social aspects , 2014 .

[8]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  Pseudo-criteria versus linear utility function in stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis , 2002, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[9]  Naim Afgan,et al.  Sustainability assessment of residential buildings by non-linear normalization procedure , 2013 .

[10]  Juscelino Almeida Dias,et al.  A stochastic method for robustness analysis in sorting problems , 2009, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[11]  Tommi Tervonen,et al.  Implementing stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis , 2007, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[12]  Naim Afgan,et al.  Assessing the sustainability of the energy use of residential buildings in Belgrade through multi-criteria analysis , 2014 .

[13]  Niki Frantzeskaki,et al.  Sustainable energy planning by using multi-criteria analysis application in the island of Crete , 2009 .

[14]  David Pennington,et al.  Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[15]  François Maréchal,et al.  Green heating system: characteristics and illustration with multi-criteria optimization of an integrated energy system , 2004 .

[16]  Dejan Ivezić,et al.  Application of multi-criteria decision-making model for choice of the optimal solution for meeting heat demand in the centralized supply system in Belgrade , 2014 .

[17]  Eric W. Stein,et al.  A comprehensive multi-criteria model to rank electric energy production technologies , 2013 .

[18]  Jukka Paatero,et al.  Evaluation of choices for sustainable rural electrification in developing countries: A multicriteria approach , 2013 .

[19]  Joonas Hokkanen,et al.  Multicriteria decision support in a technology competition for cleaning polluted soil in Helsinki , 2000 .

[20]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  Decision support for centralizing cargo at a Moroccan airport hub using stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis , 2010, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[21]  Annika Kangas,et al.  Socioecological landscape planning approach and multicriteria acceptability analysis in multiple-purpose forest management , 2005 .

[22]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  SMAA - Stochastic multiobjective acceptability analysis , 1998, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[23]  Vukman Bakić,et al.  An analytical method for the measurement of energy system sustainability in urban areas , 2008 .

[24]  Maria Madalena Teixeira de Araújo,et al.  Evaluating future scenarios for the power generation sector using a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool: The Portuguese case , 2013 .

[25]  José Rui Figueira,et al.  The SMAA-PROMETHEE method , 2014, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[26]  Joseph Virgone,et al.  Multi-source energy systems analysis using a multi-criteria decision aid methodology , 2011 .

[27]  Stig-Inge Gustafsson,et al.  Multi-Criteria Evaluation of Residential Energy Supply Systems , 2007 .

[28]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  Locating a waste treatment facility by using stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis with ordinal criteria , 2002, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[29]  Alexandru Maxim.  Sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies using weighted multi-criteria decision analysis , 2014 .

[30]  Fausto Cavallaro,et al.  Multi-criteria decision aid to assess concentrated solar thermal technologies , 2009 .

[31]  Taraneh Sowlati,et al.  A multicriteria approach to evaluate district heating system options , 2010 .

[32]  M. Ramachandran,et al.  Application of multi-criteria decision making to sustainable energy planning--A review , 2004 .

[33]  B. Mathiesen,et al.  Energy system analysis of marginal electricity supply in consequential LCA , 2010 .

[34]  Gang Liu,et al.  Development of a general sustainability indicator for renewable energy systems: A review , 2014 .

[35]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  The shape of the utility or value function in stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis , 2012, OR Spectr..

[36]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Decisions with multiple objectives: preferences and value tradeoffs , 1976 .

[37]  Jiangjiang Wang,et al.  Review on multi-criteria decision analysis aid in sustainable energy decision-making , 2009 .

[38]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  SMAA-2: Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis for Group Decision Making , 2001, Oper. Res..

[39]  Schuyler Matteson,et al.  Methods for multi-criteria sustainability and reliability assessments of power systems , 2014 .

[40]  A. Tillman,et al.  Normative ethics and methodology for life cycle assessment , 2005 .

[41]  Gioacchino Nardin,et al.  Multi-criteria analysis for the selection of space heating systems in an industrial building , 2011 .

[42]  Timothy A. Volk,et al.  Multi criteria analysis for bioenergy systems assessments , 2009 .

[43]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  Multicriteria evaluation of alternatives for remote monitoring systems of municipal buildings , 2014 .

[44]  Annika Kangas,et al.  Using SMAA-2 method with dependent uncertainties for strategic forest planning , 2006 .

[45]  Risto Lahdelma,et al.  Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) , 2010, Trends in Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis.

[46]  Daniel Favrat,et al.  Multi-criteria optimization of a district cogeneration plant integrating a solid oxide fuel cell–gas turbine combined cycle, heat pumps and chillers , 2003 .

[47]  Patricia Jaramillo,et al.  Energy supply for sustainable rural livelihoods. A multi-criteria decision-support system , 2007 .

[48]  Brian Vad Mathiesen,et al.  Uncertainties related to the identification of the marginal energy technology in consequential life cycle assessments , 2009 .

[49]  Diana Gallego Carrera,et al.  Sustainability assessment of energy technologies via social indicators: Results of a survey among European energy experts , 2010 .

[50]  Ian N. Durbach,et al.  The analytic hierarchy process with stochastic judgements , 2014, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[51]  J. Figueira,et al.  A survey on stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis methods , 2008 .