Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats determination and strategy prioritization using hesitant fuzzy decision-making approach for better energy sustainability: Demonstration with Indian data

The current major challenge of the global energy transition is to follow the right path to meet the ever-increasing energy demand at an affordable cost with low carbon options. However, this has to be achieved in different ways by each country through optimising their available resources vis-a-vis constraints. It may depend on prioritizing strategies based on the country's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of its energy sector. As con-flicting issues are always there, a multi criteria decision making approach with proper prioritization of these issues of a country is critical. Determination of appropriate priority of implementing the identified strategies may help to achieve a better energy transition towards sustainability. The proposed methodology of this study in-tegrates Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats method with a Multi Criteria Decision Making approach, i.e., Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic-Analytic Hierarchy Process, and Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic-Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution to determine the appropriate priorities of energy strate-gies. Though the method is generic, it is demonstrated with data of India. The proposed methodology may help a country to achieve better energy transition for sustainability through prioritization of strategies with widely varying criteria. The study considered 17 essential strategies depending on the needs and constraints of the country. The analysis shows that elimination of the demand and supply gap by increasing the energy efficiency (WO1) is the highest priority strategy for India. Whereas imposing taxes on the conventional energy sources (WO4) evolves to be the least priority strategy. The sensitivity analysis also validates that the estimated priorities are reliable with robustness to accommodate limited uncertainties.

Automated summary

The global energy transition faces the challenge of meeting increasing energy demand at an affordable cost with low carbon options. Each country needs to prioritize strategies based on their energy sector's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A multi-criteria decision-making approach is critical to determine the appropriate priority of strategies for a better energy transition towards sustainability.