Development of Web GIS for information of renewable energy in Aceh Province after rehabilitation and reconstruction process

Abstract

There are a lot of renewable energy potentials that is spread in numerous locations in Aceh Province. These potentials can be developed into energy source that can be utilized to fulfill the need of energy in the area. It is unfortunate that the information about the potentials is still hard to find, regardless the abundance of spatial data that were produced during the rehabilitation and reconstruction process, including data related to the renewable energy. Therefore, this research was conducted to develop an application of information technology, especially Web Geographic Information System (GIS) for renewable energy potential. The objective of this research was to fulfill the needs of relevant agencies for the Web GIS-based information technology applications to manage information on renewable energy potential in an interactive and integrated way. This research used components of Free Open Source System (FOSS) to develop a Web-based geospatial information technology application. The component consists of GeoServer as a GIS server, PostgreSQL as a geographic databases management system, QGIS as Desktop GIS for spatial data preparation and GeoExt as the framework in developing user interfaces for the Web GIS. The result of combining those components was a Web GIS that displayed areas with its renewable energy potential which was organized for each area along with legends for the map information. The Web GIS is equipped with search feature and tooltips function to select any areas and bring up detailed information of renewable energy potential of the area.