Determining Criteria for Optimal Site Selection for Solar Power Plants

Abstract

Site selection is one of the basic vital decisions in the start-up process, expansion or relocation of businesses of all kinds. Construction of a new industrial system in the form of solar photovoltaic power plant is a major long-term investment, and in this sense determining the location is critical point on the road to success or failure of industrial system. One of the main objectives in industrial site selection is finding the most appropriate site with desired conditions defined by the selection criteria. This work suggests how to define and classify particular criteria considered for solar PV farm siting. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is proposed as a method to process available technical information to support decisions in many fields, especially in environmental decision making. In some cases, due to the lack of reliable information on the impact of various natural factors on the economic activity related to the use of land resources, the method of expert assessments can be used. The peculiarity of this method is the lack of empirical evidence of the influence of a given factor on the final result of decision-making. In this case the value of separate factor is judged by experts. When applying this method, expert groups are formed of leading specialists, the main influence factors is established, a questionnaire and a scale of criteria are compiled. Level of reliability of the results is assessed by the coefficient of concordance.

Supply and Demand Assessment of Solar PV as Off-Grid Option in Asia Pacific Region with Remotely Sensed Data

“…The threshold for slope (10 • and 35 • for non-built-up and built-up areas, respectively) can be increased to accommodate more areas for PV. However, ground-mounted systems installed in steep slope areas face problems related to soil erosion and problems in stability and drainage systems [62]. Although the majority of the HPAs are croplands in the five least-electrified countries in the region, the high number of built-up areas in North Korea, which occupy 10% of HPAs for solar PV, suggests solar rooftop installation could be a good electrification option in this country.…”

“…The AW3D-DSM was processed to generate the slope. Areas with slope >10 • and >35 • for ground and rooftop installations, respectively, were deemed inappropriate for solar PV installations as suggested by [62,63] due to issues of stability and safety of solar PV installations. A detailed discussion regarding slope issues and solar PV systems is provided in Section 3.1 of this paper.…”

“…Slope is an important factor to consider when installing PV modules, especially for ground-mounted systems, since construction can become more difficult and expensive for steep slopes. High slopes can promote problems related to erosion, stability of foundation and drainage systems [62]. For built-up areas, however, slope can be more flexible but should not exceed 35 • [66].…”

Criteria for Site Selection of Solar Parks in Bangladesh: A Delphi-AHP Analysis

“…Uyan took into account quality of terrain, local weathering factors, proximity to high transmission capacity lines, agricultural facilities, and environmental conservation issues for optimum site selection in Turkey [24]. Kereush and Perovych acknowledged social, geographical, technological, and environmental factors (for example: average air temperatures, abundant solar radiation, and protected areas) play key roles in setting up solar energy parks in Ukraine [31]. Beltran et al mentioned project execution delay and stoppage risk as crucial factors for site selection of solar parks in Spain [32].…”

“…As the criteria for site selection vary from country to country, it was decided to use experts' opinion to identify if there are any other specific criteria for Bangladesh. Based on literature review [29,31,32,36], the following criteria were initially selected for first round of Delphi questionnaire.…”