Potential Site Suitability Analysis for Wind Farm Development Using GIS and Multi-Criteria Analysis

Abstract

The energy consumption of most developing countries like Ethiopia highly depends on biomass and imported fuels. These sources of energy have imposed severe impacts on the environment.Recently, Ethiopia has begun to harness electricity from renewable energies mainly from hydro- dams to meet its energy need. However, the existing energy production of the hydro-dams declines during dry season due to shortage of river waters. So, it is important to look for other renewable energy sources like wind to compliment the energy decline. This study presents an identification of suitable site for wind farm development in selected districts of Tigray Region. Ten major biophysical, environmental and socio-political factors were identified that influence the wind farm development. These major factors were delineated from the different spatial datasets which were collected from various sources. ArcGIS 10.3 and ERDAS 9.2 software were used to prepare factor maps for all variables. The pair wise comparison associated with Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to weigh the factors then weighted overlay model was applied. The findings of the overlay showed that there are sufficient lands suitable for grid- based and off-grid wind farms development in the study area. About 140.5 km2 i.e. 6.5% is highly suitable and about 1103.1 km2 which means 51.0% is moderately suitable for wind farm development. A land of area 25 km2 entirely laid under highly suitable category was identified for wind farm design. The site has excellent wind speed and is located entirely in close proximity to the main roads and grid transmission lines. Keywords: Wind farm, GIS, multi-criteria analysis, renewable energies, AHP, Ethiopia