Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation
Quarterly

Developing a Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Framework for ‎Ranking Applicants Participating in Industrial Microgrid ‎Energy Supply Projects‎

Document Type : Research article

Authors

Mohammad Gholami
Masume Khodsuz

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran, ‎Behshahr, Iran‎ ‎.‎

10.61186/jgeri.2025.2062788.1057
Abstract
With the growing need for sustainable and optimized energy supply in industrial areas, microgrids have ‎emerged as an effective solution. Accordingly, selecting capable companies to provide energy through ‎industrial microgrids requires a structured evaluation and ranking process. This paper presents a hybrid ‎decision-making framework that integrates Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and ‎Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) to assess and rank energy supply applicants. Key criteria and ‎sub-criteria, including technical-operational, economic, environmental, managerial, service-oriented, and ‎future development aspects, were identified and weighted based on expert judgment. A customized utility ‎formulation was applied within the COPRAS method to accommodate domain-specific priorities. A case study ‎involving three candidate companies demonstrated the practical application of the framework: Supplier A ‎achieved the highest utility score (Q = 0.3445) and consistently ranked first across multiple weighting ‎scenarios. Comparative analysis with AHP + TOPSIS confirmed the reliability of the results. The proposed ‎framework offers transparency, adaptability, and robustness, making it a valuable decision-support tool for ‎industrial energy procurement‎‎.‎‎‎

Highlights

❖ A hybrid SWARA–COPRAS framework is proposed for evaluating and ranking energy suppliers in industrial microgrids.
❖ A comprehensive set of criteria was developed, covering technical-operational, economic, environmental, managerial, service, and future development aspects.
❖ The framework was validated through a case study in which Supplier A achieved the highest utility score and remained top-ranked under different weighting scenarios.
❖ Comparative analysis with AHP–TOPSIS confirmed the robustness, transparency, and reliability of the proposed decision-support approach. 

Keywords

Industrial microgrids
Energy supply companies
Multi-criteria decision-making
SWARA method
COPRAS method
Criteria weighting‎

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, redundancy, have been completely observed by the authors.

Credit Authorship Contribution Statement

Mohammad Gholami: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Software, Visualization, Writing - original draft.  Masumeh Khodsuz: Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing-review & editing.

Bibliography

Mohammad Gholami is an assistant professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in 2021, M.Sc. in Power Systems Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in 2015, and B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Babol Noshirvani University of Technology in 2013. During his PhD, he spends 6 months as a visiting scholar at Aalto University. His research interests are smart grid, active distribution network, WAMS, and transformer protection.

 Masumeh Khodsuz was born in Sari, Iran, in 1985. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Power Engineering from Mazandaran University of Technology in 2007 and 2010, respectively. She obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical Power Engineering, with a specialization in High Voltage Engineering, from Babol University of Technology in 2015. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran. Her research interests include electric and magnetic field analysis, high-voltage engineering, power system reliability, condition monitoring and diagnostics of high-voltage equipment, and power quality.

Citation
M. Gholami and M. Khodsuz, "Developing a Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Framework for Ranking Applicants Participating in Industrial Microgrid Energy Supply Projects," Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 1-13, 2026

 
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Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation
Volume 3, Issue 3
Summer 2026
Pages 1-13

  • Receive Date 05 June 2025
  • Revise Date 30 August 2025
  • Accept Date 09 September 2025
  • Publish Date 01 September 2026

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