Multicriteria location of thermal power plants

Locational decisions concerning implantation of power stations require to take into consideration several qualitative or quantitative criteria of economic, technological or social nature. The width of the problem involves many actors having divergent opinions on the relative importance of these criteria. Solving a decision problem of this aspect has recourse to multicriteria modelling. In the literature, the multicriteria location models on the graph or those which were developed with multiobjective mathematical programming are inadequate and/or inoperational to deal with the location of power plants. The authors have found that the ELECTRE III multicriteria decision aid method is well adapted to this problem. In this paper they present a case study carried out by Electricité de France International in a North African country. The problem is to select the best sites in three coastal regions to locate thermal power plants. The problem is formulated, the criteria are estimated and quantified, the selection is achieved by using the ELECTRE III method, and the obtained solutions are discussed.