Spatial energy planning of offshore wind farms in Greece using GIS and a hybrid MCDM methodological approach
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(2020) 5:24
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Spatial energy planning of offshore wind farms in Greece using GIS and a hybrid MCDM methodological approach Sofia Spyridonidou1 · Dimitra G. Vagiona1 Received: 6 December 2019 / Accepted: 16 April 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The present paper focuses on the efficient development of offshore wind farms in shallow waters in Greece. An integrated spatial energy planning approach is introduced. The proposed methodology is implemented using geographic information system and Statistical Design Institute software and applied at the national spatial planning scale. It consists of four distinct stages: (1) identifying appropriate areas to site offshore wind farms (the macro-siting configuration), (2) determining the principal technical specifications of the offshore wind turbines as well as the micro-siting configurations of offshore wind projects, (3) estimating the total investment cost of each potential offshore wind project, and (4) prioritizing the most suitable potential sites for offshore wind farms based on specific assessment criteria. The final outcomes of the proposed methodology are the development of a marine site suitability index and an assessment of the effects of different policy orientations for offshore wind farm siting on that index. Four ‘what-if’ critical scenarios are applied to test the robustness of the overall suitability index to the subjectivity of expert judgments of potential sites and thus assess the reliability of the proposed methodology. The implementation of the proposed methodology could facilitate the fulfillment of national targets for the energy sector and encourage energy interdependence among many geographic areas in Greece, since the total estimated production capacity of all the proposed offshore wind projects is expected to reach 1,185 MW. Keywords Spatial energy planning · Site selection process · Offshore wind farms · Geographic information systems · Multicriteria decision-making · Sensitivity analysis
Introduction Offshore wind energy has recently become prominent in the growing wind energy market for reasons such as the existence of stronger winds of longer duration offshore and restrictions on land availability for onshore siting. Indeed, the total installed capacity of offshore wind energy in Europe reached a record figure of 3148 megawatts (MW) in 2017 (Wind Europe Business Intelligence et al. 2018). In 2018, 409 new offshore wind turbines in 18 offshore wind projects were connected to the electricity grid in Europe (Wind Communicated by Georgia Pozoukidou, Guest Editor. * Sofia Spyridonidou [email protected] Dimitra G. Vagiona [email protected] 1
Department of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Europe Business Intelligence et al. 2019). This brought 2649 MW of net additional capacity online, meaning that the cumulative offshore wind capacity in Europe reached 18,499 MW at the end of 2018 (Wind Europe Business Intelligence et al.
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