A comparative analysis of the potential South African renewable energy sources using Analytical Hierarchy Process

South Africa one of the most developed country in the continent of Africa had been dealing with serious challenges such as substantial growth in residents and increasing per capita electrical energy use that requires maximum utilization of existing electricity generating sources. Presently, more than 88% of electricity is being generated by means of fossil fuels with coal leading the raking by feeding the national power grid with approximately 72% of electrical energy produced. However, this power supply system puts a colossal strain on the economy and triggers significant damage to the ecosystem in general. To mitigate, this high reliance over non-renewable electricity producing resources, the South African government along with its department of energy as well as the electricity utility decided to implement measures with the aim of promoting the production of electricity through the renewable energy resources. However, these decisions have been primarily made with the goal of reducing the power crisis, without giving a significant consideration to the environmental, economic, social, and technical aspects concerning all the proposed renewable energy resource alternatives. To bridge this gap, this paper used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in order to define the absolute priorities of the renewable energy sources in the South African energy sector. The parameters such as environmental, economic, social, and technical were taken into account in this study with the aim of identifying and ranking the electricity technologies such as biomass, wind, hydro, and solar energy. Various analyses including sensitivity ones were conducted in order to determine the most promising energy source between these technologies. The outcomes of these analyses indicate that biomass is the most promising option with 52.6%, followed by wind with 27.2%, hydro 12.9%, and solar energy 6,9%.