Multicriteria selection aiding related to photovoltaic plants on farming fields on Corsica island: A real case study using the ELECTRE outranking framework

Corsica island has been subjected to an unprecedented abundance of photovoltaic plant projects since its energy policy is focused on renewable resources. Concerned public institutions require specific tools to select the most relevant projects among numerous projects proposed in a transparent and prudent way. To this end, a multicriteria decision aiding method was developed to select among 16 projects that have been proposed on farming fields in Haute Corse. This paper details the main stages in the multicriteria methodology, including criteria and constraint definition, criteria weight set calculations, threshold and concordance level determination and the implementation of the chosen multicriteria model, ELECTRE IS. Thus, considering different points of view (energy, geo-economic, ecological, visual impact, territorial use, financial effect), eight criteria have been defined, one of which is optional. The method applied to the reviewed data allowed building 6 weight sets, while a concordance level of 2/3. Using this method, based on our criteria sets and according to the weights and concordance levels determined by the client, 4 projects were selected among the 16 initial ones, with the robustness of these results being tested through all criteria weight sets and different concordance level applications. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.