Four existing cool storage systems for air conditioning, chilled water storage, ice storage, phase change material cool storage and high temperature water cool storage, are evaluated and compared in multi-criteria. Due to the availability and uncertainty of qualitative criteria, this paper presents a fuzzy multi-criteria model to select the optimal cool storage system. In the evaluation process, the optimal weighting method combines the subjectivity of decision-maker and the objectivity of numerical data to obtain the comprehensive weights of criteria and avoids the subjective one-sidedness of weights. The fuzzy multi-criteria model applied to select the best cool storage system in detail demonstrates the evaluation process and its applicability in selecting an optimal system. The evaluation results indicate that ratio of cooling density and ratio of cooling capacity are the most important factors in cool storage systems, and ice cool storage system is the optimal option. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.