A GIS-based Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis approach for wind power plant site selection

This paper deals with site selection problems for wind power plants and aims to propose a structural procedure for determining the most feasible sites. The application area is Western Turkey. The methodology is mainly composed of two stages: the first stage is pre-elimination of infeasible sites, and the second stage is evaluation of the available ones. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to generate layers of data and to apply the elimination criteria and constraints. The alternative land areas are handled in terms of identical-sized grids, which are large enough to install one wind turbine each. Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is then used to rank and sort the grids via the identified evaluation criteria. The problem is evaluated in 13 fields, which are a collection of several grids in order to evaluate larger scale areas to construct wind farms rather than for individual turbines. The evaluations are made both at grid (micro) and field (macro) levels and both deterministic and uncertain data are used. The results reveal a high level of consensus on the most feasible sites between the different MCDA methods applied. The proposed methodology provides a structured decision aid, which can be applied to other energy site selection problems.