Pre-Feasibility Assessment of Hydropower Infrastructure Enhancement Using an MCDM Decision-Support Framework for a Cascaded Hydropower System in the Skellefte River, Sweden

Abstract

The growing share of variable renewable energy sources increases the need for operational flexibility in power systems. In regions with cascaded hydropower systems, upgrading existing plants may be a more practical short-term planning option than developing new hydropower facilities. This study employed a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework based on the VIKOR method to screen and prioritize existing hydropower plants for potential infrastructure upgrading and capacity development in the Skellefte River, located in Northern Sweden. According to this prefeasibility study, six hydropower stations with installed capacities above 50 MW along that river were evaluated using six technical criteria: installed capacity, hydraulic head, efficiency, generation cost, average turbine discharge, and normal annual production; their weights were derived using the Shannon entropy method to minimize subjectivity. The ranking suggests Gallejaur, Kvistforsen, and Bastusel as the most favorable alternatives, mainly due to their strong performance in annual production and hydraulic head. Vargfors, Krångfors, and Selsforsen rank lower because of head and/or production constraints. The proposed pre-feasibility hydropower ranking workflow provides a transparent and reproducible preliminary technical screening tool. More detailed studies, including hydraulic cascade operation, environmental permitting and grid constraints, are required before practical implementation and feasibility assessment studies for future investigations.