Risk assessment of offshore photovoltaic projects under probabilistic linguistic environment

Offshore photovoltaic (PV) power generation has received extensive attention for its advantages of saving land resources, high power generation efficiency and proximity to load centers. However, investors are bound to face a series of risks since China's offshore PV power generation is still in its infancy. To this end, a multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) framework for the risk assessment of offshore PV projects is constructed in this paper. Firstly, 17 risk factors are identified and classified into 4 groups. Probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) are then introduced to evaluate the criteria values to depict the uncertainty and fuzziness. Furthermore, a probabilistic linguistic ordered average Choquet integral (PLOAC) operator is proposed to aggregate criteria values and deal with the correlations between criteria. In addition, an expert weight-determining model is built based on the entropy and interaction-entropy measures of PLTSs. Finally, the risk levels of the project and each criterion are determined by similarity measure and the corresponding risk countermeasures are given. According to the case study and comparative analysis, the risk level of Zhejiang Ninghai offshore PV project is slightly high. This work provides a scientific theoretical basis for investment decision-making and risk prevention of offshore PV projects. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.