Wind turbine evaluation using the hesitant fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS method with a case in Turkey

As energy security concerns push the countries to find more sustainable and renewable sources of energy, wind power became one of the fastest growing renewable energy source. As only a handful of wind turbine manufacturers established foothold in world markets, it is essential for managers to make right decisions regarding which wind turbines they will install in any given project. This study explores the literature on the wind turbine selection, solicits opinions of the industry experts to come up with a more realistic set of criteria and develops a decision making tool integrating hesitant fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Technique-for-Order-Preference-by-Similarity-to-Ideal-Solution (TOPSIS). As wind turbine selection problem includes both quantitative and qualitative criteria, it is difficult to tackle with high uncertainty by using traditional techniques. Thus, hesitant fuzzy sets (HFS) which is an evolved fuzzy tool that deals with vagueness is utilized. In this study, hesitant fuzzy AHP is utilized to overcome the ambiguity, which occurs during criteria prioritization. In order to rank the alternatives, hesitant fuzzy TOPSIS is applied. By the help of this integrated approach, evaluation process becomes systematic and easy to deal with vagueness. The proposed method is demonstrated by a case study in Turkey.