Decision analysis related to solar farm investments based on analysis hierarchical process and fuzzy AHP for sustainable energy production

Renewable solar energy is one of the most preferable clean energy sources with no environmental impacts. The Marrakech Safi region (Moroccan context), with its arid and semi-arid climate, can ensure sustainable energy production-oriented for a green economy. This paper aims to perform a decision analysis using the analysis hierarchical process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP to identify the suitable areas for potential solar farms. The adopted approaches used 15 factors to produce suitability maps. AHP and Fuzzy AHP were used to minimize the subjectivity related to the factor notation, and to improve the result of the models. The factors' weights were reevaluated using the sensitivity analysis to assess their influence by comparing the theoretical and the effective weights. The final map was validated by overlaying other solar projects implemented in the region. Results show that the suitable areas to host the solar farms cover more than 35% (1300 Ha) of the entire region's surface using AHP and Fuzzy AHP. According to the results, there was no significant difference in Decision-Making between the two methods in determining the five highest priorities of attributes selection for solar power plants. Moreover, the similarity analysis performed demonstrated that 32% of unequal areas between AHP and Fuzzy AHP can be explained by the factors' weights and the difference of the used approaches. The climatic potential and the geographic location of the study area offer a large suitable area for the installation of solar farms. These findings constitute decision-making support for solar farm investments in a green economy.

Automated summary

This paper uses the analysis hierarchical process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP to identify suitable areas for solar farms in the Marrakech Safi region. The study finds that over 35% of the region's surface is suitable for solar farm installations. The two methods used in the decision-making process showed no significant differences.