A Multi-Criteria Techno-Economic Evaluation of PEM and Alkaline Electrolysers for Green Hydrogen Production Using Fuzzy BWM, TOPSIS, and WASPAS

The future of green hydrogen is with the selection of electrolysis technologies that harmonize performance, cost, and sustainability. The novel integrated multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach proposed here is a fusion of the Fuzzy Best-Worst Method (FBWM), TOPSIS, and WASPAS to order Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) and Alkaline electrolysers against 30 sub-criteria in five essential dimensions: Technical, Economic, Environmental, Technological, and Social/Policy. Weighting the criteria using FBWM revealed efficiency (0.0899) and capital expenditure (0.0800) as the most prominent, highlighting the significance of cost-performance trade-offs in stakeholder decisions. Greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption scored high on environmental metrics. TOPSIS results showed a narrow lead of PEM (CCi = 0.507) over Alkaline (CCi = 0.493), owing mainly to superior technical parameters like hydrogen purity and current density. WASPAS analysis confirmed this finding, with PEM returning a sum score of 0.432 compared to Alkaline's 0.414. Sensitivity analysis across four weighting scenarios determined the test of rankings robustness: PEM did better in all but the cost-dominant scenario, in which Alkaline did better due to lower CAPEX and longer stack lifespan. Dual-method validation and scenario testing demonstrate the hybrid MCDM methodology's robustness. This framework is a structured, lucid tool to employ when making technology decisions under varying stakeholder priorities, scalable for application in broader hydrogen infrastructure planning