Goal Programming models with interval coefficients for the sustainable selection of marine renewable energy projects in the UK

In this paper, a strategic decision making model for the sustainable development of marine renewable energy is proposed, and a specific application to the United Kingdom (UK) is demonstrated. As an island nation the UK benefits from significant marine energy potential which is providing an increasing contribution to UK's renewable energy portfolio. The paper investigates the question of how decision makers can be aided to reach a decision on which types of marine renewable energy projects should be chosen for development given that strategic energy planning is subject to a number of uncertain parameters and multiple sustainability objectives. In this context, the contribution of this paper lies in the combination of renewable energy portfolio selection and the application of multi-objective methods. Interval coefficient goal programming models are adopted in order to address the impreciseness and uncertainty associated with the goals and coefficients of the models in the context of renewable energy selection. The potential renewable energy projects are clustered in order to aid the decision making process and preferential weight sensitivity methods are employed. Conclusions are drawn for optimistic and pessimistic scenarios in the context of UK marine renewable energy planning.