A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach to solve renewable energy technology selection problem for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Abstract

The recent migration of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar has drawn significant attention to Bangladesh. To accommodate these refugees, the government of Bangladesh (GoB1) plans to shift them from Cox’s Bazar to Bhasan Char, which is an off-grid coastal area. Renewable energy technologies (RETs2) could, in fact, be the only option to electrify the region. However, a detailed analysis is required to justify the suitability of different RETs. For this reason, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP3) integrated Combinative Distance-based Assessment (CODAS4) hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM5) method is proposed to identify the best RET in the study area. The present study considers solar-wind hybrid energy system, solar mini-grid and wind mini-grid RETs for investigation. In total, thirteen sub-criteria under four criteria covering technical, economic, environmental and socio-political aspects were selected based on the agreement of experts. AHP method was deployed to find the weights of the criteria. Finally, a new MCDM method, namely CODAS, was applied to obtain the rank of the RETs. The results reveal that the solar-wind hybrid energy system is the best technology as it obtains the highest appraisal score. A sensitivity analysis was carried out by changing a threshold parameter in CODAS method to check the consistency of the rank order. The comparative study identified the utility of the proposed hybrid MCDM method. Therefore, the proposed method can be identified as effective in enhancing the value of information and can be accepted as a useful tool to ease the decision making problem in the development of RETs in Bhasan Char for Rohingya refugees.