Study of site suitability assessment of regional wind resources development based on multi-criteria decision

Abstract

This paper proposed an evaluation method based on Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) and Geographic Information System (GIS) to evaluate the suitability of the development of wind energy resources. An evaluation index system was established on the ecological, environmental and socio-economic perspective. It consisted of three criteria (ecological characteristics, socio-economic characteristics and social environment characteristics) and twenty-six sub-criteria (sensitivity of nature reserve, value of ecological service, distribution of wind energy resources, atmospheric environmental pollution index, etc.). Analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy quantitation method were used to determine to the criterion weights and order weights of the relevant indexes. OWA and GIS were jointly employed to construct the framework of zonal suitability analysis. Using this method, the suitability of wind energy development in Liaoning province was analyzed and the spatial distribution characteristics of wind energy development suitability under different decision were obtained. Combined with the results of regional wind energy resource distribution, the technical exploitation amount of wind energy resources was obtained under different suitability grades. The study found that the suitable site selection mainly distributed in the Huludao, Jinzhou and Yingkou beach areas and shoreline of the Bohai Sea, Fuxin and Chaoyang in the northwest Area, Dandong alpine region in the eastern Shenyang, Tieling and Anshan in central plain areas.