Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision Making Approach for Evaluating Sustainable Energy Technology Alternatives

Energy has been universally recognized as a key element for sustainable development. In developing countries, such as Turkey, energy demand increases thanks to a fast growing population and economy, posing threats of energy availability in the next decades. For this reason, Turkey has to evaluate and develop domestic, clean, and reliable energy sources from different alternative sources for sustainable development. In this process, as selecting the best energy alternatives requires both quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria, two multi criteria decision making methods (MCDM) are employed for the analysis. More precisely, the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to determine the evaluation criteria weights and fuzzy Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is applied to select the most suitable alternative. The originality of the paper comes from its ability to propose an effective framework for both Turkey and literature and apply it to a real industrial problem to improve the sustainable energy alternative technology selection process. Key-Words: Sustainable energy selection, Multi-criteria decision-making, Fuzzy AHP, Fuzzy TOPSIS