Selecting Renewable Energy Sources for Small Island Using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

ABSTRACT: In this modern era, energy became a necessity product in order to have a good quality in life, human development and growth in economy. However, most of the countries’ energy sectors depend on the importation of primary energy products from other countries which reduces the growth rate and the quality of life of the home country. Moreover, this dependency jeopardizes these factors. Small island countries, which are not integrated to main land, have some restrictions in their economies because of the limited primary energy resources and importation payments. Without any importation, those islands’ economies cannot sustain. However, they can find some alternative resources in order to reduce the paying money to the host countries and they can keep money inside of the country which can cause an increase in life standards for the residents. This dependence on the imported primary energy products is highly revealed to some changes in political and economic issues depending on the fluctuations in the price level. Therefore, the volatilities in fossil fuels prices and the difficulties for foreseen their prices results the risks for the consumers and suppliers. Depending on this issue, renewable energies become crucial alternative energies in order to provide clean and sustainable energy, clean environment and to protect the economy. Accordingly, the priorities of the renewable energies are appraised in this study to find out best alternative renewable energy resource for six small islands’ energy sector. AHP model is selected as a methodology for this study which gives the flexibility for the survey needed researches. The hierarchical model for the study consists of four stages which can be listed as goal, criteria, sub-criteria and the alternatives. Small island countries potentials are examined depending on the five main criteria and thirteen sub-criteria by using the AHP model in order to see the best alternative that can contribute its energy sector more than the traditional production and the other kinds of renewables. In parallel with this fact, Costs, Technical issues, Social issues, Locations and Environmental issues are evaluated as the main criteria. Moreover, thirteen subcriteria are presented for reaching this goal and analyze has been made for Malta, Cyprus, Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Singapore separately. While the main criteria are ranked among each other, mostly the environmental factor has become the most crucial one and followed by the cost, technical, location, and social issues. The rankings in terms of the numbers can be represented as 0.378 (environmental), 0.266 (social), 0.18 (location), 0.115(technical) and 0.061(cost). Therefore; for all islands, Solar Energy is founded as the best potential in order to invest and reach goal. Furthermore, it is purposed that depending on the results and the priority of the renewable energy, the decision makers can benefit from this study in order to develop long-run policy for economic issues with respect to energy sector and create a roadmap for the energy efficiency policy for the country. Keywords: Renewable energy, sustainable development, AHP, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Small island countries. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………