Energy costs have become a very important problem for businesses, especially in recent years. As a result of these high costs, businesses may experience financial problems. If this situation cannot be managed effectively, the profitability of the enterprises will decrease. This will put the long-term sustainability of businesses at risk. This problem is also very important for hospitals. Recently, the energy costs of hospitals have started to become very serious among the total costs. As a result, the need for hospitals to produce their own energy arose. This will help hospitals achieve energy independence. As a result, it will be possible for energy costs to be more manageable in the long run. In this study, the effect of small-scale wind turbines on the competitiveness of hospitals was analyzed. In this context, four different criteria based on balanced scorecard have been determined. The importance of these criteria was tested with the fuzzy DEMATEL method.
TopIntroduction
Energy costs have increased significantly, especially in recent years. This situation affects the performance of the enterprises in a very negative way. High energy costs reduce the profit margin of the enterprises. This will reduce the performance of the enterprises (Kayacik et al., 2022; Li et al., 2022). It will not be possible for businesses whose profitability has decreased or lost a lot to be sustainable in the long run. In this context, businesses need to be able to take measures to reduce energy costs (Sun et al., 2022; Kafka et al., 2022).
High energy costs are a particularly important issue for hospitals. Especially recently, energy costs have a very high rate in the total costs of hospitals. Therefore, hospitals need to take action to manage these costs (Eti et al., 2023; Xu et al., 2022). Energy independence is a very important issue for hospitals. As long as hospitals can produce their own energy, they will be able to manage these costs more easily. In other words, the energy costs of hospitals that can produce their own energy will be significantly reduced in the long run (Dinçer et al., 2023; Bhuiyan et al., 2022).
Renewable energy projects are also investments that can be considered for hospitals to produce their own energy. The energy source in these investments is natural factors such as wind and sun. Since these factors can always be found in nature, their resources are never exhausted (Kou et al., 2022; Mukhtarov et al., 2022a,b). That's why these projects are called renewable. The biggest advantage of renewable energy projects is that countries can produce their own energy. Hospitals will also be able to produce their own energy thanks to these projects. This will contribute to the energy independence of hospitals (Dong et al., 2022; Martínez et al., 2022).
On the other hand, there are some disadvantages in renewable energy projects. First of all, the costs of these projects are very high. As this situation makes investors nervous, it hinders the development of these projects (Dinçer et al., 2022a,b). Therefore, this problem should be solved by taking necessary actions. In the solution of this problem, priority should be given to technological developments. Thanks to the application of new technologies, it is possible to produce clean energy at lower costs (An et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022). This will contribute to the increase in the use of clean energy projects.
Wind energy is one of the most popular types of renewable energy. In wind turbines, electrical energy is obtained from the movement force of the wind. In contrast, wind panels are usually installed in very large areas (Carayannis et al., 2022). This situation is considered as one of the most important disadvantages of wind energy. Due to this problem, wind turbines cannot be installed in every area and wind energy cannot be utilized very effectively (Yu et al., 2019). On the other hand, small scale wind turbines have started to be produced, especially with the development of technology (Aksoy et al., 2022; Li et al., 2021). Thanks to the small size of these turbines, it has been possible for every business to benefit from wind energy.
In this study, the effect of small-scale wind turbines on the competitiveness of hospitals was analyzed. In this context, four different criteria based on balanced scorecard have been determined. The importance of these criteria was tested with the fuzzy DEMATEL method. On the other hand, the reliability of the results was tested comparatively by performing another analysis with fuzzy AHP. According to the results of the analysis, technological competence was determined as the most important criterion. Therefore, it would be appropriate for hospitals to take steps to improve their technologies first.