Scenario planning for the national wind energy sector through Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

In this paper, multiple future scenarios are developed using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) based approach for the national wind energy sector of a developing country. Building scenarios with FCM is a very new approach and three FCM-based scenarios are developed for the national wind energy sector. An expert panel was used to develop these scenarios. The developed scenarios help to establish a future vision of the national wind energy sector. In the economic growth scenario, energy security concerns emerged as a dominant driver, leading towards utilization of the indigenous wind resources. In the favoring policies scenario, scarcity of financial resources is an important concern because the country is not making good economic growth. Finally, climate change and emissions of greenhouse gases are the dominant concerns in the third scenario. These scenarios provide a detailed overview of probable future landscape of the wind energy sector. Moreover, these developed scenarios also provide a basis for long-term energy planning for the national energy sector.