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Sustainability Assessment of Solar Technologies Based on Linguistic Information

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Assessment and Simulation Tools for Sustainable Energy Systems

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN,volume 129))

Abstract

The leading role in the decision-making process is generally assigned to the decision maker who evaluates the various alternatives and ranks them. In some circumstances the decision is based on the use of different types of information often affected by uncertainty; thus the decision maker is not able to produce all the information necessary to make a strictly rational choice. In many cases the information can be expressed only by using linguistic labels, e.g. “very low”, “medium”, “high”, “fair”, “very high”, etc. It is not easy to precisely quantify the rating of each alternative and precision-based methods are often inadequate. Vagueness results when language is used, whether professional or not, to describe the observation or to measure the result of an experiment. This happens particularly when it is necessary to work with experts’ opinions which are translated into linguistic expressions. The use of fuzzy set theory has yielded very good results for modelling qualitative information because of their ability to handle the impreciseness that is common in rating alternatives. In this chapter a modified multicriteria method (F-PROMETHEE) that uses fuzzy sets is proposed to handle linguistic information in comparing a set of solar energy technologies using only linguistic variables.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Management, Society and Institutions, University of Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100, Campobasso, Italy

    Fausto Cavallaro

  2. Department RIAM, University of Messina, P.zza Pugliatti 1, 98121, Messina, Italy

    Luigi Ciraolo

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  1. Fausto Cavallaro
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Correspondence to Fausto Cavallaro .

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  1. Department of Economics, Management and Society and Institutions, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy

    Fausto Cavallaro

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Cavallaro, F., Ciraolo, L. (2013). Sustainability Assessment of Solar Technologies Based on Linguistic Information. In: Cavallaro, F. (eds) Assessment and Simulation Tools for Sustainable Energy Systems. Green Energy and Technology, vol 129. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5143-2_1

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