An ANP-based approach for the selection of photovoltaic solar power plant investment projects

In this paper the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is applied to the selection of photovoltaic (PV) solar power projects. These projects follow a long management and execution process from plant site selection to plant start-up. As a consequence, there are many risks of time delays and even of project stoppage. In the case study presented in this paper a top manager of an important Spanish company that operates in the power market has to decide on the best PV project (from four alternative projects) to invest based on risk minimization. The manager identified 50 project execution delay and/or stoppage risks. The influences between the elements of the network(groups of risks and alternatives) were identified and analyzed using the ANP multicriteria decision analysis method. Two different ANP models were used: one hierarchy model (that considers AHP as a particular case of ANP) and one network-based model. The results obtained in each model were compared and analyzed. The main conclusion is that unlike the other models used in the study, the single network model can manage all the information of the real-world problem and thus it is the decision analysis model recommended by the authors. The strengths and weaknesses of ANP as a multicriteria decision analysis tool are also described in the paper. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.