Evaluation approach for sustainable renewable energy systems under uncertain environment: A case study

Abstract The demand for energy in Egypt has increased dramatically due to the steady increase in economic and societal development. To meet this need, the use of more renewable energy resources is an essential part of the solution to the ultimate shortage of energy. Because of the multitude of factors involved, the selection of the most suitable renewable energy systems (RESs) is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. There are a good number of works associated with the design of MCDM methods, particularly under uncertain and ambiguous situations. However, efficient incorporation of ambiguity and uncertainty in decision making is still a challenging task, and thus this work proposes a hybrid MCDM approach for selecting the components of a sustainable RES under uncertain environments, utilizing different triangular neutrosophic numbers to deal with unclear information. This proposed hybrid approach starts with defining the relative importance of the selected sustainable criteria by using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Later, in the second phase, this hybrid approach combines VIKOR and the TOPSIS to rank the RESs for a real-life case study. The results obtained indicate that concentrated solar power is the most suitable source of renewable energy for Egypt, with photoelectric power the second most suitable.