The Efficiency Assessment of Renewable Energy Sources with Data Envelopment Analysis

In this paper, we compare the efficiencies of seven primary renewable energy technologies that generate electricity. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to determine the most efficient renewable energy source with predetermined input and output variables. We apply four different analytical approaches to rank these energy sources with respect to their efficiency scores. According to our analysis, geothermal is the most efficient and solar thermal technologies are the least efficient renewable energy sources