Abstract
The public acceptance of Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) is an important issue that is expected to depend highly on their site location. Public involvement in decision-making processes is recommended as it may contribute to the mitigation of opposing, delaying and even blocking OWF projects, as well as increasing future public confidence and support. The aim of this study is to identify the most suitable sites for OWFs deployment in Greece based on citizens’ preferences and judgments. The methodology consists of three phases: (i) identification of Eligible Marine Areas (EMAs) for OWF siting by deploying ten exclusion criteria, (ii) prioritization of six evaluation criteria and ranking of EMAs according to citizens’ judgments through an Online Questionnaire Survey (OQS) and (iii) overall prioritization of EMAs. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), supported by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the OQS are used for the analysis. The results illustrate the priority ranking of thirteen EMAs for OWFs deployment in the Greek marine environment under five different scenarios. The most suitable sites are located in the South-West zone offshore of Rhodes in all the examined scenarios. Sustainable development is a challenging social process, and the different preferences of the society should be integrated in planning processes.
Highlights
Renewable Energy Sources (RES) have gained the interest of both the scientific community and the investors during the last decades
We focus on the outcomes of the Online Questionnaire Survey (OQS), while, we present the results of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) application along with those of the sensitivity analysis
The identification of unsuitable marine areas for Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) siting in Greece and, the determination of the Eligible Marine Areas (EMAs) are achieved by deploying the thematic maps of the exclusion criteria (Table 1)
Summary
Renewable Energy Sources (RES) have gained the interest of both the scientific community and the investors during the last decades. The point of interest in wind energy, mainly in Europe, has moved from onshore to offshore locations, taking advantage of the higher and steadier wind speeds met in the open sea [1]. In this way, it is possible to produce “environmentally friendly” energy in small countries, such as Greece, where, on the one hand, the appropriate and available land areas for wind farm siting are limited, due to many spatial constraints, and on the other hand, there is a plethora of marine areas that could be used for this purpose.
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