An Analysis of the Renewable Energy Technology Selection in the Southern Region of Bangladesh Using a Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Method

Abstract

Bangladesh is a country of small char lands and islands. Most of these are out of national grid coverage. Therefore, renewable energy technology is the only solution to electrify. However, proper investigation and research is needed to select the most suitable renewable energy technology. In this study focus is given on the southern region of the country to select the best renewable technology. Based on the current available technology and potentiality of the renewable energy resources in the country five types of renewable energy technology are selected for the evaluation. These are solar, wind, biomass to electricity, biogas to electricity and solar-wind-battery hybrid energy system. To evaluate the best renewable energy technology Multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDM) method is used where anintegrated Entropy-EDAS model is proposed to identify the best renewable energy technology in the study area. At first, the key criteria and sub-criteria were selected to analysis five (5) types of renewable energy technologies. These criteria were categorised as economic, technical, environmental, and socio-political.Additionally, 12 sub-criteria were selected under the umbrella of four main criteria. Then, the Shannon’s Entropy method was deployed to find the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria. Finally, a new MCDM method named Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (EDAS) was applied to select the best renewable energy technology in the study area. The results revealed that the Solar-Wind-Battery hybrid energy system is the best option. The outcome of this study and the decision model might be applicable to other isolated areas in the country, particularly in the southern region of Bangladesh.