Abstract

Windfarm site suitability selection using multi-criteria decisions and spatial modelling
Track: Renewable Energy
Authors: Laurence Neufville

Since the decade of the 1970s Jamaica's economy like that of many countries without indigenous sources of fossil fuels suffered from the inflated and fluctuating prices of petroleum products. Such economies have had to grapple with the negative environmental consequences of using fossils fuels, notably climate change and global warming. The strategic response therefore, was to encourage the investment in wind farms and other renewable energy resources (RES) namely wind, solar and hydropower.
The method used in this paper pivots on the use of a deterministic GIS model and is supported by multi-criteria decision making and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to select suitable sites for wind farms. The model selected 113 optimal sites that were further optimised by filtering out small non-contiguous areas. Geo-visualisation techniques were used to address concerns of visual intrusion and 'nimbyism' and could also serve as a means of further optimisation of selected sites.