Multi-Criteria Decision-Making for Distributed Renewable Energy Systems: A Review of Methods, Criteria Selection and Weighting Techniques

The growing adoption of distributed renewable energy systems (DRES) calls for advanced planning methodologies capable of addressing their inherent complexity and multi-dimensional trade-offs. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) frameworks are widely used to balance diverse objectives, but their effectiveness depends heavily on the selection of criteria, weighting techniques, and integration methods. This paper undertakes a systematic review of the existing literature to analyze how MCDM approaches have been applied in the planning and optimization of DRES projects. The review focuses on the criteria considered in MCDM, the techniques used to assign their relative importance, and the methods employed to integrate these weights into multi-objective evaluations. The analysis draws from a diverse set of peer-reviewed papers, examining economic, technical, environmental, and social dimensions, as well as the relationships between project-specific features and the criteria selection process. Results show that social criteria remain underrepresented both in terms of frequency and of relative importance in the evaluation process, while economic criteria are the most used and influential, underlining the need for more balanced, context-sensitive, and socially inclusive MCDM frameworks. Among MCDM methods and weighting methods, TOPSIS and AHP are by far the most common approaches, respectively. This review provides a foundation for future research aimed at improving the adaptability and effectiveness of MCDM frameworks in DRES.