Impact of local factors on decision making - a multi criteria modelling framework in wind energy investment

Wind power is an important renewable energy generation technology, but the location of wind potential and wind power plant installation are not in complete sync with each other. Many national, state and local variables other than wind potential play a role in site selection. The weights given to different local variables during wind power investment decisions are not known and are difficult to estimate in data paucity settings in India. Accordingly, this study proposes a framework to estimate the weights given to different local parameters in wind power investment decisions. We use the case study of select districts in Maharashtra, India to test the framework. The investment predictions based on priority of local factors estimated by the proposed approach are in agreement with the actual investment in the wind energy sector.