Sustainable hydroelectric projects are judged by their contribution to sustainable development, long-term viability, and ability to integrate sustainability goals. This paper analyses the Bui hydroelectric dam in Ghana vis-à-vis these expectations using sustainability indices. A multi-criteria analysis tool, APIS (Aggregated Preference Indices System), is used to build indices for Bui dam for four hydrologic seasons. An analysis of the indicators used revealed that environmental indicators are weightiest and economic indicators have the least weight. Comparative analysis of the Bui dam project shows 40%, 36%, 18%, and 6% priority for technical, economic, social, and environmental criteria, respectively, during its implementation stages. Per estimation of this work, the general sustainability index of the Bui dam is between 0.4 and 0.6 on a scale of 0 to 1. The impact of seasonal climate change will reduce the index to below 0.5 for three hydrologic seasons. The results show that Bui dam has an average but weak index of sustainability. Multi-criteria analysis offers quality assessment of energy projects, which is valuable for analyzing proposed or existing energy projects. This paper shows the possibility of using multi-criteria analysis approach to assess the sustainability of a hydroelectric dam. The approach offers a quantitative and qualitative assessment of a hydroelectric dam via a suitable choice of indicators.
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