An approach to aggregate public opinions and experts'judgement with application to risk perception of sources of electrical supply

摘要

Decision making in sustainable development of energy industries requires considering multiple issues and opinions to choose the best option among several alternatives. Competitive comparison of sources of electrical supply must account for risk perception among the relevant issues in the decision making process. An integration of technical knowledge through experts'judgement and public preferences or opinions is needed to reach the best decision on energy planning. Thus, risk perception is suggested as one important input towards such integration. The AHP is a methodology, successfully used in many industrial sectors, which allows the aggregation of beliefs from different sources regarding one or several subjects to obtain a final classification of options. This paper presents the application of the AHP for the aggregation of public opinions and experts' judgements concerning risk perception of technologies of electrical supply. The results show rankings of preferences useful in the competitive comparison of alternatives.