Investigation of feasibility study of solar farms deployment using hybrid AHP-TOPSIS analysis: Case study of India

Presently, the usage of solar energy has increased with the advent of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and bypassing traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels. Government of India (GoI) is adopting various policy measures to promote diffusion of solar energy across the nation and has huge solar energy investment plans in near future. In this regard, selection of appropriate site for solar power installation is of prime concern. It is a critical issue that needs to be analyzed in depth for producing solar power efficiently because various key factors viz. social, technical, economic, environmental and political aspects are associated with it. Considering the fact that there are lots of factors which affect the solar farm site selection, it is imperative to organize them in a systematic hierarchy. In this direction, present study aims to select appropriate site in an Indian case using hybrid combination of two Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) methods- Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Present investigation reveals that Sonepat is the best location for solar installation followed by Rohtak, Chandigarh, Gurgaon and Hisar in state of Haryana, India. The purpose of the investigation is to present an effective, efficient and systematic decision support framework which might help policy planners in the evaluation process of appropriate solar farm site selection in India.