An environmentally conscious photovoltaic supply chain network design under correlated uncertainty: A case study in Iran

Abstract

As the destructive impacts of unbridled use of fossil fuels threaten the quality of life, moving towards renewable energy like solar power has precipitated. While such movements are commendable, environmental impacts of its infrastructure development should not be overlooked. In this sense, this paper addresses a multi-objective robust mathematical model to study an environmentally conscious solar photovoltaic supply chain under correlated uncertainty. The proposed model aims at minimizing the environmental impacts of included activities in the concerned supply chain in addition to minimizing the conventional cost objective. To quantify and assess the relevant environmental impacts, a life cycle assessment-based model is accomplished employing the ReCiPe 2008‏ approach embedded in the SimaPro software tool. The augmented ϵ-constraint procedure is deployed to optimize the proposed multi-objective model, which is able to attain compromise solutions from the Pareto-optimal set. Correlated uncertainty whose importance is underlined in the real-life situations of the photovoltaic industry is also tackled exploiting a robust optimization method. Ultimately, the validity of the presented model is vindicated through discussing a case study. The acquired results endorse the effectiveness and usefulness of the model and offer prominent practical and managerial insights.