LAUSR

Abstract A key solution to imminent energy shortage and the protection of environment is to use much more of renewable resources of energy. There are various renewable resources of energy and choosing the most appropriate alternative is a complex task that involves several decision factors with different weights. Although nearly all decisions to be made by decision makers (DMs) in energy sector are subject to uncertainty, how to efficient handling ambiguity is an open problem. In this paper, a new multi criteria decision making framework is proposed to evaluate renewable energy alternatives under uncertainty. Considering the explicit advantages of D number in dealing with imprecise information and best worst method (BWM) in obtaining the criteria weight, we provide a new weighting method, which integrates BWM and D numbers, called D-BWM. D number is a more flexible extension of Dempster–Shafer theory and possesses key advantages in handling uncertainty in the process of decision making. The illustrative examples demonstrate that D-BWM can obtain more reliable weights and higher consistency compared with traditional BWM. Moreover, to rank the available energy resources, we explore the application of WASPAS and COPRAS in this context and an important remark about WASPAS is pointed out. The suggested method selects solar energy with the highest score in Iran. Fortunately, the introduced method provides an easy and systematic approach which can be straightforwardly extended to handle many decision problems in the field of sustainable development. Finally, this paper provides a brief discussion on the potentials and barriers to sustainable energy development in the country.