This study investigates the degree of importance of criteria affecting the optimal site selection of offshore wind farms. Firstly, forty two different influential criteria have been selected by reviewing the scientific literature on offshore wind farm site selection. Secondly, a survey has been conducted receiving a response from thirty four internationally renowned experts across seventeen countries. Each participant is asked to indicate the importance and relevance of each criterion based on their experience. Finally, the importance of each criterion for offshore wind farm site selection is determined using a novel Decision Making-Level Based Weight Assessment (LBWA) approach based on interval-valued fuzzy-rough numbers (IVFRN). The proposed method allows exploitation of the uncertainties and subjectivity that exist in the decision-making process. The results from this study improve our understanding of the importance and impact of each criterion which we believe would be invaluable for the future studies on the site selection of offshore wind farms.
Keywords: Criteria; Delphi technique; Interval-valued fuzzy-rough numbers; Offshore wind farm; Renewable energy; Site selection; Traditional type-1 fuzzy numbers.
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