Statistical-analytical study on world development trend in offshore wind energy production capacity focusing on Great Britain with the aim of MCDA based offshore wind farm siting

Abstract

Present study is a statistical-analytical analysis about the offshore wind energy plants development. As a multi objective or multi step study, in the first step the last 20 year development trend of top 10 pioneering countries in offshore wind energy production capacity studied to classify the countries based on their activity level in development path. Based on results the Great Britain (GB) can be nominated as the most active country from the offshore wind energy production capacity development point of view. But in order to access a real rank of countries based on offshore wind energy per capita, a more reliable index defined with dividing the offshore wind energy production capacity by population of countries. Based on introduced index the condition of GB with per capita of 123.5 Watt/person is not good enough compared to countries like Denmark, Belgium, Sweden and Netherlands with lower production capacity but higher per capita of 293.6, 194.4, 184.7 and 145.9 Watt/person respectively. Considering the island type and geographical position of GB and also having the highest development rate of offshore wind energy production capacity between top 10 countries in last 20 years, as the second step an analytical study conducted to find the best geographical coordinates for new offshore wind energy plant installation and enhancing production capacity. Blending multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) with GIS software that is called special multi criteria decision analysis (SMCDA) is the method that is applied for offshore wind farm siting. Wind energy density, wind speed, water depth and distance from shore are the four main selected criteria for offshore wind farm siting. Next to for main criteria, the locations of installed or under construction offshore wind farms and also efficiency of offshore wind farms in various months and seasons are the other criteria for selecting suitable siting. In addition to above mentioned criteria, the suitability analysis for offshore wind farm siting applied in four different altitudes and also in six various areas around the GB. Based on results the northern (area#1), north western (some parts of area#6), north eastern (some parts of area#2) and some parts of western waters (area#5) are the best areas for installing offshore wind farms based on suitability map results in all four altitudes.