Novel Multi-Criteria Intuitionistic Fuzzy SWARA–COPRAS Approach for Sustainability Evaluation of the Bioenergy Production Process

Arunodaya Raj Mishra, Pratibha Rani, Kiran Pandey, Abbas Mardani, Justas Streimikis, Dalia Streimikiene and Melfi Alrasheedi
Additional contact information
Arunodaya Raj Mishra: Department of Mathematics, Government College, Jaitwara 485221, Satna, Madhya Pradesh, India
Pratibha Rani: Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology, Warangal 506004, Telangana, India
Kiran Pandey: Department of Mathematics, Bioinformatics and Computer Application, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal 462003, Madhya Pradesh, India
Justas Streimikis: Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics, A. Vivulskio g. 4A-13, 03220 Vilnius, Lithuania
Dalia Streimikiene: Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos 3, 50229 Kaunas, Lithuania
Melfi Alrasheedi: Department of Quantitative Methods, School of Business, King Faisal University, Hofuf 31982, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Bioenergy is a kind of renewable energy that can potentially contribute to a broad spectrum of economic, environmental, and societal objectives and aid sustainable development. The assessment, management, and monitoring of the diverse bioenergy production technology alternatives are complex in nature and deliver different benefits due to the lack of precise and comprehensive data. Selection of an optimal bioenergy production technology (BPT) alternative is considered a complex multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem that involves many incompatible tangible and intangible as well as qualitative and quantitative criteria. The procedure of defining and evaluating the weights of the criteria is an important concern for decision experts because the assessment and the final selection of the BPT alternative are carried out on the basis of the defined set of criteria. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) have received considerable attention due to their ability to handle the imprecision and vagueness that can arise in real-life situations. Thus, this study presents an integrated approach, based on stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) approaches, for the selection of BPT alternatives. In the integrated framework, criteria weights are determined by the SWARA procedure, and the ranking of BPT alternatives is decided by the COPRAS method using IFSs. The criteria weights evaluated by this approach involve the imprecision of experts’ opinions, which makes them more comprehensible. To express the efficiency and applicability of the integrated framework, a BPT selection problem is presented using IFSs. In addition, this study involved sensitivity analysis with respect to various sets of criteria weights to reveal the strength of the developed approach. The sensitivity analysis outcomes indicate that the agricultural and municipal waste of biogas (S 3 ) consistently secures the highest rank, despite how the criteria weights vary. Finally, a comparative study is discussed to analyze the validity of the obtained result. The findings of this study confirm that the proposed framework is more useful than and consistent with previously developed methods using the IFSs environment.

Keywords: intuitionistic fuzzy sets; SWARA; COPRAS; MCDM; biomass; bioenergy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/4155/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/4155/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:10:p:4155-:d:360181

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().