Photovoltaic technology selection: A fuzzy MCDM approach

This paper focuses on standards battles for photovoltaic technological systems. Five photovoltaic technologies are currently commercially available and it is still unclear which of these technologies will emerge as the dominant design. Based on the literature and on expert interviews, we develop and analyze categories and factors for technology dominance for these systems. By applying the analytic hierarchy process, we determine the importance of these factors and the chances of one of these five technologies becoming the dominant photovoltaic technology. The crisp and fuzzy (logarithmic fuzzy preference programming) analytic hierarchy process method is used to analyze the data. The results show that the standard support strategy is the most important category, and that pricing strategy and technological superiority are the most influential factors in the dominance process. Furthermore, the first generation technology mono-crystalline silicon photovoltaic has the best chance of achieving dominance (30% chance). The results of this study are useful for multiple stakeholders (e.g. energy policy makers and photovoltaic module companies) who have to make the decision as to which standard should be supported for photovoltaic technology.