Investment risk evaluation of inland floating photovoltaic power plants in China using the HFLTS–TFN method

Abstract

Abstract Inland floating photovoltaic power plants (IFPPPs) are the key to making full use of water advantages to develop solar resources in the future. Identifying the investment risk is an important prerequisite for promoting the projects on a large scale. This paper proposes a model to assess the investment risk of IFPPPs in China. First, this paper identifies the investment risk factors and establishes an evaluation indicator system from four aspects. Second, the indicator data are collected and described by adopting hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets and triangular fuzzy numbers to ensure soundness and completeness. Third, a weighted method combining the best–worst method and the entropy method are utilized to determine the indicator weights under the consideration of the impact of subjective preferences and objective fairness. Fourth, the results show that the overall risk level of China’s IFPPPs is ‘medium low’. Fifth, sensitivity analysis and comparative analysis are implemented to examine the stability of the evaluation results. Finally, this paper also provides some risk-response strategies for the development of China’s IFPPPs from economy, society, technology and environment.