The evaluation and selection of renewable energy technologies in China

With the increasing pressure to international energy supply, greater climate and environment problem related to the traditional fossil energy, many countries have decided to develop the renewable energy vigorously. Renewable energy technologies include hydro, wind, solar, biomass, ocean energy and geothermal. Different countries and regions have different choices on renewable energy technology because of their different economic, technical and environmental conditions. The academic has paid more and more attention to the evaluation and selection of renewable energy technology. This paper builds a comprehensive evaluation index system for Chinese renewable energy technology based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA), from economic, technology efficiency, social and environmental benefits. The result shows that wind and solar power are more suitable for Chinese economic, technical, environmental and social requirements, followed by biomass, hydropower, ocean energy, geothermal energy. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.