Prioritizing the Weightage of Sustainability Criteria and Sub-Criteria of Decentralized Micro-Hydropower Projects for Rural Electrification in Nepal

In many cases, sustainability of renewable energy systems (RES) is being analyzed by identifying certain criteria and sub-criteria considering equal weightage among the respective groups. However in reality, relative weightage of criteria and sub-criteria vary due to many reasons. Thus, this paper tries to prioritize the weightage of criteria and sub-criteria of decentralized micro-hydropower projects for rural electrification by analyzing sustainability indicators related to four dimensions- technical, social, economic, and environmental. An Analytical Hierarchy Process –Online Software (AHP-OS) model is used to prioritize the weightage of respective criteria and sub-criteria through expert opinion. Suitable goal, criteria and sub-criteria are developed after reviewing pertinent literature and consultation of the experts. The results reveal that technical criteria (0.362) is the most crucial sustainability criteria followed by economic (0.290) and social (0.226). Environmental criteria (0.122) is found to be the least preferred criteria. The results reveal that ‘energy availability’ (10.8%) is observed to be the most preferred and ‘GSI inclusion’ (2.4%) is ranked to be the least preferred sub-criteria among the 19 sub-criteria. Nepal, being a developing country, shows a trend of people preferring the development of energy services first at a relatively low cost without considering the environment and gender/social inclusion. As a result, technical and economic criteria and sub-criteria are preferred more than that of environmental and social. The outcome of the research can help decision-makers and policy-makers in shaping energy policies, plans, and programs, and foster future pathways for providing sustainable rural electrification in the country. Keywords: Indicators, Sustainability, Multi-criteria analysis, Prioritizing, Pairwise DOI: 10.7176/JETP/9-9-02 Publication date: December 31st 201