Optimized Selection of Renewable Energy Sources Based on Regional Potentials in Colombia: A Comparative Analysis of AHP and FAHP for Sustainable Development

Abstract

This study evaluates alternatives using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP (FAHP) methodologies across five scenarios (SC1 to SC5), aiming to compare the effectiveness of both approaches in integrating environmental and technical criteria. The results indicate that, in SC1, AHP assigns weights of 14.35% to A1 and 16.22% to A2, while FAHP demonstrates greater dispersion, highlighting A6 with 35.22%. In SC2, AHP prioritizes A1 with 14.16%, whereas FAHP increases the weight of the environmental criterion to 21.18%. In SC3, A1 remains the preferred option in both methodologies, with close weights of 34.00% for AHP and 32.98% for FAHP. In SC4, both methods show similar trends, with A1 standing out at 11.12% and A4 at 34.87%. Finally, in SC5, AHP allocates 8.52% to A1, while FAHP evaluates it at 10.73%. The findings suggest that FAHP allows greater sensitivity to variations in sub-criteria, enabling a more precise evaluation aligned with sustainability objectives. The significance of environmental and social criteria across the scenarios underscores the necessity of incorporating more sustainable approaches into decision-making processes. It is concluded that, while AHP delivers consistent results, FAHP may be better suited for contexts characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is recommended to examine how variations in criterion weights impact final decisions.