Sustainable and Integrated Selection of Photovoltaic Sites and Technologies Using the Delphi–AHP Method: Multi-Criteria Evidence of the Critical Role of Grid Capacity in Latin America

Cordero Noa J.J.; Quispe Soto G.V.; Alvarez Y.C.; Carrera L.A.I.; Jiménez Borges R.; Aviles M.R.; Rodríguez-Resendiz J. · Solar (2026) · DOI: 10.3390/solar6040038

Resumen

By the end of 2024, global photovoltaic (PV) capacity exceeded 2.2 TW, shifting planning from feasibility demonstration toward site–technology co-selection under energy, technical, economic, environmental, territorial, and socio-regulatory constraints. The existing multicriteria literature treats site and technology selection as independent problems under an implicit infinite-grid assumption, which is untenable in markets such as Chile and Peru. This study develops and validates an integrated Delphi–AHP framework with six criteria and eighteen subcriteria calibrated by twenty-eight experts from six Latin American countries. The framework underwent Delphi binary validation, AHP consistency control ((Formula presented.) between 0.0013 and 0.0247; discard rate 2.6%), geometric-mean aggregation, deterministic sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo simulation (10,000 iterations), rank-reversal testing, and nonparametric subgroup analysis. The dominant pair (Formula presented.), consisting of grid hosting capacity and LCOE, appears as Top-2 in 84.77% of Monte Carlo iterations and is preserved across 15 of 16 leave-one-out scenarios. Grid hosting capacity surpasses useful solar resource by a factor of 3.41. A demonstrative application to 18 site–technology alternatives confirms the ranking, with an objective-weighting benchmark (entropy, CRITIC) yielding concordant results (Spearman (Formula presented.)). The findings formalize a shift in the PV planning bottleneck from solar resource to grid capacity.

Instituciones: Universidad Tecnológica del Perú