Evaluating Selection Criteria for Chinese Solar Greenhouses: A Case Study for Northern Jiangsu Province

Abstract

Selecting a solar greenhouse type that suits local conditions is an important issue for the development of protected horticulture in Northern China. In this study, type selection was treated as a multi-objective fuzzy decision-making problem. According to building features and microclimate, an assessment framework system was constructed that consisted of four levels: objective level (A), criteria hierarchy (B), sub-criteria hierarchy (C), and alternatives (D). The indicators for sub-criteria hierarchy were first quantified by a set of formulas and survey of experts. The surveyed data were classified using the Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Next, the weights of the indicators were obtained from 15 experts. The results show that the weight of structure safety (B2) is the highest, while the aesthetic property is the lowest in the criteria hierarchy. In the sub-criteria hierarchy, the weight of structural stability (C4), useful life (C5) and land utilization (C11) are higher than others. A case study was performed for northern Jiangsu province to screen out the optimal solar greenhouse types that suit the local conditions using his methodology. The result suggests that the method of multi-objective fuzzy decision-making and classical AHP could be used to deal with the selection of solar greenhouse designs.