Wind Energy Development Site Selection Using an Integrated Fuzzy ANP-TOPSIS Decision Model

Abstract

The identification of appropriate locations for wind energy development is a complex problem that involves several factors, ranging from technical to socio-economic and environmental aspects. Wind energy site selection is generally associated with high degrees of uncertainty due to the long planning, design, construction, and operational timescales. Thus, there is a crucial need to develop efficient methods that are capable of capturing uncertainties in subjective assessments provided by different stakeholders with diverse views. This paper proposes a novel multi-criteria decision model integrating the fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) and the fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to evaluate and prioritize the potential sites for wind power development. Four major criteria, namely economic, social, technical, and geographical, with nine sub-criteria are identified based on consultation with wind farm investors, regulatory bodies, landowners and residents, developers and operators, component suppliers, ecologists, and GIS analysts. The stakeholders’ preferences regarding the relative importance of criteria are measured using a logarithmic least squares method, and then the alternative sites are prioritized based on their relative closeness to the positive ideal solution. The proposed model is applied to determine the most appropriate site for constructing an onshore wind power plant consisting of 10 wind turbines of 2.5 MW. Finally, the results are discussed and compared with those obtained using the traditional AHP, ANP and ANP-TOPSIS decision-making approaches.