Abstract
It is prevalent that by 2050, the global energy demand would increase by 50% to the current demand. The projected demand for electricity in Saudi Arabia is expected to exceed 120 GW/year by 2032. The Saudi government has set a goal of generating 9.5 GW of wind energy by 2023. In this study, firstly, a spatial interpolation technique is used to build a first accurate wind map of the entire country, then a GIS-based multicriteria decision-making model is developed to select suitable wind farm sites considering various ecological, environmental and socio-economic criteria. All the identified criteria are given equal weightage in the model. Therefore, with noncompliance with even a single criterion, the associated complete area is considered unsuitable. As a case study, this model is independently applied to four regions covering the entire of Saudi Arabia. In the northern region, three wind farm sites are identified. The central area has a more suitable area compared to other regions mainly due to good wind resources and road and grid connectivity. The suitable sites in the Eastern region are located between Dammam and Hafr AlBatin city. The southern region has a scarcest suitable area for wind power exploitation located near the province of Madinah.
Highlights
Energy is vital for the growth of any country
The geographic information system, GIS is an effective tool for site suitability analysis when integrated with long-term accurate data of various criteria involved in decision making
An accurate wind map is very essential for planning a wind farm
Summary
Energy is vital for the growth of any country. Most of the energy is utilized by the industrial sector followed by the transportation, commercial, and residential sectors. To fulfill the government’s initiative, Saudi Vision 2030 of generating 9.5 GW of wind energy by 2023, a 400 MW wind farm is planned in Dumat alJandal, Sakaka [7] This wind farm is expected to be operational by the end of 2020 and would produce energy at a cost of $ 21.3 per MWh. Compared to European countries, wind energy penetration in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia is in an early stage. The use of GIS-based MCDM analysis for the planning of wind farms gained importance in the early 2000s [9]. The GIS-based, Multi-criteria-decision making approach was applied to wind farm siting in Lancashire, UK in 2001 [10]. The second method used weightage based on the importance of each layer or criteria pertaining to expert advice and prevalent in the literature [10]
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