The selection of renewable energy technologies using a hybrid subjective and objective multiple criteria decision making method

Abstract

The use of renewable energy technologies is a key factor for sustainable development but their selection from several alternatives is a difficult task that relies on the careful assessment of relevant criteria. While Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods have been used successfully in various renewable energy technology selection problems, the decision process becomes more challenging when preferential judgements are made on the basis of non-homogenous and imprecise input data, and when there is uncertainty due to disparities among decision makers. This paper presents a hybrid MCDM method capable of overcoming these problems by taking into account quantitative and qualitative data under a probabilistic environment in the context of group decision making. In this method, qualitative data is fuzzified and used along with quantitative data to develop a hybrid model. A coefficient factor allows decision makers to vary the weight of each quantitative model so that the resultant criteria weights and overall alternatives’ scores consider both subjective considerations and objective information. An example is presented to showcase the usability of the method developed for ranking and evaluating renewable energy technologies in the mining industry. In addition, the impact of different coefficient factors on the final results was assessed by means of sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the method developed is able to minimise the loss of valuable objective information, caused by the subjective bias of qualitative weights during the evaluations, by adjusting the coefficient factors of the hybrid model during the calculations.