Siting high solar potential areas using Q-GIS in West Bengal, India

Abstract

The introduction of renewable energy into the electrical grid has long been attributed as a major step towards the development of a sustainable world. In renewable energy systems, despite there being several sources to extract the energy from, solar energy is considered as a major contributor. For the establishment of solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, considering the amount of investments in terms of capital and skilled labor, it often becomes coherent to investors to ensure maximum profitability out of it. The location of the area where the plant is to be built accounts for a dominating factor affecting its efficiency and hence its actual output even in terms of money. This work portrays a study on the state of West Bengal in India and analyzes the state on a Quantum Geographical Information System (Q-GIS) based model, first by masking out the unsuitable areas for constructing a solar PV plant using Q-GIS, and then further deploying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) tool to obtain a hierarchy of the remaining suitable regions for the construction of the plant. The study concludes Raghunatpur and Belda as the most suitable regions for the establishment of a solar PV plant in the state. The resultant figure obtained using Q-GIS is a directive to investors and policy-makers alike who aim at deploying this model in their future endeavours in the energy domain of the state. This proposed model is a framework, which can be reused in any study of a similar essence.