Ranking Potential Renewable Energy Systems to Power On-Farm Fertilizer Production

Abstract

Farmers across the world have long used chemical fertilizers to achieve higher production outputs. One of the basic inputs for the production of nitrogen fertilizer is fossil fuel, which is not only finite but also has tangible impacts on the environment. This study aims to determine the most suitable renewable energy resource (RER) for the production of fertilizer in Iranian farmlands. The resources considered in this study were photovoltaic energy, biomass energy, wind energy, and solar thermal energy. This assessment was carried out in terms of six general criteria derived from a PESTEL (Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Environmental and Legal) analysis, and thus 20 sub-criteria were obtained with the help of experts. The criteria were weighted using the Fuzzy AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. Because of the use of criteria with crisp, fuzzy, and interval-type values, the ranking was performed using the extended TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese of interactive and multi-criteria decision-making) method. A sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the effects of the sub-criteria on the results. The results showed that the technological criterion is the most important measure for this assessment, and that photovoltaic energy and wind energy are the top two options for powering chemical fertilizer production in Iranian farmlands.

Evaluating Decision Making in Sustainable Project Selection Between Literature and Practice

“…The project selection process is considered a complex process, partly due to the many interrelated variables that are considered in the selection process, the difficulty in providing exact decisions, and the uncertainties in the subjective judgments and opinions of the decision makers who are making the selection between the project alternatives [26][27][28]. In addition, many decisions are usually made by multiple decision makers and, thus, require incorporating opinions from multiple sources or experts [29].…”

Improved Structural Local Thermal Energy Planning Based on Prosumer Profile: Part B

“…The economic aspect of any technology selected to service at any system is one of the most important criterion. Common sub-criteria used for the evaluation of the economic aspect are: Capital Expenditures (CAPEX), Operational Expenditures (OPEX) and Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE) [22,23]. While CAPEX and OPEX are widely used in techno-economic analysis, the LCoE is considered a more concise indicator of the economic performance of an energy production of storage technology [10,22].…”

“…For the sociopolitical criterion, both the contribution of the technology to the society and the legal/political implications of its use are considered. Some of the sub-criteria of the sociopolitical criterion are: Legal incentives, Legal acceptance, Local welfare and Social acceptance [23]. The legal/political sub-criteria are still immature as the legal framework for several TLEC systems and technologies used is under implementation [3].…”

“…The designer of a DTESS focuses on implementing a more sustainable, viable and efficient solution to a TLEC. Environmental indicators such as emissions and land required for the installation of the respective technology are widely used for decision making in DTESS systems [11,22,23]. The sub-criteria expressing these indicators are: GHG emissions (or CO 2 equivalents) and Land use and are both used in the present study.…”

“…The results of the hierarchical method indicate that the LCoE and Primary Resource Availability are the most important sub-criteria. The Capacity Factor and Technological Maturity are also included in the important sub-criteria based on the background works [10,11,23,25,26]. The Random Index (R.I.) used for the 7 criteria in the AHP method is 1.32 and the λ max coefficient 6.17.…”