**2. Materials and Methods**

This study aimed to analyze and select potential sites for OTEC exploitation within the Republic of Panama. A Hierarchical Analysis Method (AHP) was used as a MCD to analyze the criteria to identify the advantages, disadvantages, applicability, and reliability of a site within the oceanic territory of Panama. Subsequently, the analysis of this problem was approached as a particular case of MCD, using the initial process proposed by Thomas L. Saaty (The Analytic Hierarchy Process, 1980); for the formulation of any case of AHP-MCD [22,23].

All the possible criteria and sub-criteria and the indicators that address the subject under study were identified. An exclusion–inclusion criteria model was performed to address the qualitative criteria. Then, a model was proposed for this case, presenting a hierarchical structure where all aspects (indicators) relevant to the justification of the problem under study were considered. Each selected indicator was evaluated and quantified by considering their direct effects on the net production of the system, besides on guaranteeing the potential of the oceanic thermal resource housed in each alternative; for this valorization, the Saaty fundamental scale was used.

A comparison of the matrices was performed to justify the assessment or priority of each indicator at the time of being compared with itself and with the others. These comparisons represent the importance of the criteria, establishing the most significant importance to the criterion with the greatest relevance to the subject under study.

Next, the prioritization and synthesis were carried out. In this stage of the AHP, the different priorities considered for resolving the problem are provided. The priority represents an abstract unit valid for any scale in which the decision-maker's preferences consider appropriate when integrating tangible, intangible, quantitative, and qualitative aspects.

Subsequently, the consistency of the randomly generated matrix of paired comparisons was justified by using the method provided by the AHP to estimate the degree of consistency between the paired opinions provided by decision-makers. Therefore, the consistency radius, consistency index, and random index are calculated to justify whether the judgments are inconsistent or have a reasonable level of consistency.

The radius of consistency is a ratio or quotient in which if its values exceeds 0.10, it indicates that the judgments are inconsistent; therefore, the original values of the matrix of paired comparisons should be reconsidered and edited. For the case where CR is less than 0.10, this represents a good and reasonable indication in paired comparisons.

Finally, the prioritization matrix of alternatives is presented. In this, it is possible to justify and identify the best alternative within the oceanic territory where the OTEC plant must be installed. In Figure 2, we can see a flowchart corresponding to the methodology addressed in this research.

**Figure 2.** The methodology proposed for developing and implementing the AHP-MCD method in site selection for OTEC.

#### *2.1. The Analytic Hierarchy Process Method (AHP)*

The AHP method analyzes and develops complex decision-making problems of multiple MCD criteria [22]. The AHP is based on identifying all the variables involved in a problem, linking them according to all possible solutions, and concluding [23]. The AHP method efficiently and graphically organizes the respective information for any problem under study [24]. The AHP is a hierarchy with priorities, where these show the overall preference corresponding to one of the decision alternatives [23].

The AHP method uses direct quantitative allocation scales to prioritize the criteria and make comparisons between criteria pairs [25]. This step aims to build a vector of priorities or weights that evaluates the relative importance of the decision-making unit given to each criterion. Table 1 shows the fundamental scale proposed by Saaty for this process [26].


**Table 1.** Saaty's scale for the absolute numbers corresponding to the priority and importance of these considering their respective definitions and degree of contribution [22,23,27].

If the activity *i* have assigned one of the above non-zero numbers compared to the activity *j*, then *j* has the reciprocal value compared to *i*

```
If the activities are very close
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It can be difficult to assign the best value, but compared to other contrasting activities, the size of the small numbers would not be too noticeable, but they can still indicate the relative importance of the activities.
