An extension of the PROMETHEE method for decision making in fuzzy environment: Ranking of alternative energy exploitation projects

In the decision making process for the development of local resources, a number of factors, sometimes conflicting, have to be considered. Multicriteria decision making procedures are widely applied today to ensure a rigorous analysis. In this presentation a multicriteria method of ranking alternative projects, PROMETHEE, is extended to deal with fuzzy input data. The method is applied for the evaluation and ranking of alternative energy exploitation schemes of a low temperature geothermal field. It is demonstrated that this approach is more realistic and produces a more reliable ranking for problems, such as the evaluation of alternative energy exploitation scenarios, where the input data are not well defined. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.