Assessing technology portfolios of clean energy-driven desalination-irrigation systems with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets

Kejia Hu, Qian Tan, Tianyuan Zhang and Shuping Wang

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2020, vol. 132, issue C

Abstract: In arid and semi-arid regions, there exist great potential for supplementing irrigation water with brackish water desalinated by clean energies. Determining technology portfolio is essential for the establishment of clean energy-driven desalination-irrigation (CEDI) systems, requiring multi-criteria group decision-making. Unfortunately, few existing methods were capable of assessing such a complex problem that involves multiple technologies and uncertainties. During multi-criteria group decision-making, uncertainty arising from linguistic information and varying confidence in estimation is usually available as interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIFSs). Previous studies relied on the direct provision of IVIFSs by experts, which made them inapplicable in real-world problems because experts’ understanding over IVIFSs might be limited and inconsistent. Therefore, an easy-to-operate method for collection and conversion of IVIFSs was proposed in this study to avoid misunderstanding and facilitate realistic reflection of expert judgements. Duplex rating sets (DRSs) were proposed to express uncertain estimates and the associated confidence levels, and transformation equations were established to convert DRSs into IVIFSs. Based on the introduction of DRSs and transformation equations, an entropy-weighted TOPSIS approach with IVIFSs information was then developed. The developed method was then applied to northwest China for supporting the assessment of CEDI technology portfolios. The most desirable portfolio was screened out under the criteria of agriculture, ecology, economy, and system performance. Moreover, results of sensitivity analysis showed that the selected portfolio would perform the best in twelve of the total twenty scenarios. Without loss of generality, the developed method is also applicable for other decision-making problems involving multiple criteria, stakeholders and uncertainties.

Keywords: Multi-criteria decision-making; Food-energy-water nexus; Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets; Entropy theory; Arid regions; Technology selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.109950

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