Abstract

Hybrid renewable energy systems (HRESs) represent a promising strategy for reducing carbon emissions across multiple sectors by integrating complementary resources such as solar, wind, hydropower, and energy storage technologies. Identifying the most suitable location for a pilot installation requires a comprehensive evaluation that balances technical performance, environmental benefits, social considerations, and economic feasibility. This study employs an enhanced multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework, supported by machine learning (ML) techniques, to assess four pilot sites developed within the HY4RES project: a rural community, an aquaculture facility, a port installation, and an agriculture network. A comprehensive set of key performance indicators (KPIs) was established to capture technical, environmental, social, and economic dimensions. These include the degree of hybridization, carbon intensity, community benefit scores, net present value, levelized cost of energy, and payback period. After collecting and normalizing the site-specific data, ML EL-SVM, decision tree, and logistic regression models as computational surrogates designed to bypass the multi-step, matrix inversion mathematical requirements of the AHP when screening massive numbers of future scenario outputs supporting consistency checks and sensitivity exploration were used, along with criterion adjustments, to refine the relative importance of each KPI. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to assess potential factors and rank the sites, with the rural site achieving the highest overall score in the system, driven by its complex four-source hybrid configuration and strong community-level benefits. The agriculture scheme ranked second, demonstrating significant potential for carbon emission reductions. The port pilot placed third, distinguished by high technical innovation but more limited social impact. The aquaculture site ranked fourth, primarily due to environmental scores, despite its economic self-sufficiency.

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