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Evaluation of photovoltaic cells in a multi-criteria decision making process

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Abstract

The requirements to satisfy the energy needs of today without compromising those of future generations have forced humans to adopt rules that permit a better use of the available resources, of which the sun is an inexhaustible energy source. Amongst the energy sources that offer the possibility of exploiting the resources offered by the Earth, solar energy has acquired great strength. Photovoltaic energy has presented a major evolution and it is forecasted as being an important contributor to power generation and an alternative to other non-renewable energy sources. The high cost of solar electricity is today the main reason why electricity from photovoltaic systems has not been introduced in a more widespread way. In this context, the aim of this paper is the study and analysis of the decision criteria to be used when searching for the best photovoltaic cell, studying both the criteria that exert most influence or their manufacture (defined by quantitative and qualitative values) and the alternatives which will be the decision problem to be solved; each alternative will correspond to one type of photovoltaic cell. Thus, relevant information has been provided by three experts and the TOPSIS method has been used to aggregate all the information combined with the use of fuzzy sets which will model the use of linguistic labels in the process.

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Abbreviations

AHP:

Analytic Hierarchy Process

MCDM:

Multi-Criteria Decision Making

PV:

Photovoltaic

EPIA:

European Association of Photovoltaic Industry

CIGS:

Copper indium gallium diselenide

TFN:

Triangular fuzzy number

TOPSIS:

Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution

GIS:

Geographic Information System

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Cartagena, 30202, Murcia, Spain

    M. Socorro García-Cascales & J. Miguel Sánchez-Lozano

  2. Universidad de Granada, Granada, 18071, Spain

    M. Teresa Lamata

Authors
  1. M. Socorro García-Cascales
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  2. M. Teresa Lamata
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  3. J. Miguel Sánchez-Lozano
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Correspondence to M. Socorro García-Cascales.

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Socorro García-Cascales, M., Teresa Lamata, M. & Miguel Sánchez-Lozano, J. Evaluation of photovoltaic cells in a multi-criteria decision making process. Ann Oper Res 199, 373–391 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-011-1009-x

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