A DECISION-SUPPORT TECHNIQUE FOR THE DESIGN OF HYBRID SOLAR-WIND POWER-SYSTEMS

This paper presents a decision support technique to help decision make rs study the influencing factors in the design of a hybrid solar-wind power system (HSWPS) for grid-linked applications. These factors relat e mainly to political and social conditions, and to technical advances and economics. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to quanti fy the various divergencies of opinions, practices and events that lea d to confusion and uncertainties in planning HSWPS. The trade-off/risk method is used to generate multiple plans under 16 different futures and obtain the corresponding trade-off curves. Unlike the traditional 2-D simulation, a novel modeling of a trade-off surface in 3-D space i s presented where the knee set is determined using the minimum distanc e approach. Robust and inferior plans are segregated based on their fr equent occurrence in the conditional decision set of each future and h edging analysis to reduce risk is performed in order to assign alterna tive options in case risky futures occur.