Determination of the Most Optimal On-Shore Wind Farm Site Location Using a GIS-MCDM Methodology: Evaluating the Case of South Korea

• Published in: Energies (Basel) 2017-12, Vol.10 (12), p.2072
• Main Authors: Ali, Sajid, Lee, Sang-Moon, Jang, Choon-Man
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Decision making; Feasibility studies; fuzzy-analytical hierarchy process (FAHP); geographic information system (GIS); Geographic information systems; multi-criteria decision making (MCDM); Multiple criterion; optimization; Site selection; South Korea; Territory; wind farm; wind farm suitability maps; Wind farms; Wind power
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en10122072

Optimum wind farm site selection is a quite complicated and iterative process, as it depends upon various parameters and so called “site selection criteria”. Determining the relative weight of each criterion, which is a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) process, is very critical during this process. The current study deals with the optimum site selection for on-shore wind farm development in the territory of South Korea using a geographic information system (GIS). Seven different site selection criteria, including the slope of the land, the distance to roads and wind potential are considered. Similarly, seven different types of land zones where it is impossible to build a wind farm, commonly known as restricted areas, such as military zones, wetlands, etc., were also considered and excluded from the study area. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) coupled with fuzzy triangular numbers (FTN) was utilized as a MCDM tool to get criterion weights and making the optimum site selection decision. Wind farm suitability maps were prepared under six different scenarios, and it was found that the eastern part of the country has relatively higher feasibility for on-shore wind farm development in the near future. According to the wind farm suitability scale (1 to 8 where 8 being top sites) developed in this study, it was determined that under each scenario the total area of scale 8 sites i.e., “the most suitable sites” account for less than one percent of the total area of South Korea. Apart from the wind farm suitability maps, the top five sites were also determined according to each scenario and the values of important parameters such as latitude (°) & longitude (°), the area of the site (km2) and the average values of all seven criterions were also estimated for each of the top five sites.