Multi criteria decision analysis for offshore wind energy potential in Egypt

Abstract

a b s t r a c tOffshore wind energy is highlighted as one of the most important resource to exploit due to greater wind intensity and minimal visual impacts compared with onshore wind. Currently there is a lack of accurate assessment of offshore wind energy potential at global sites. A new methodology is proposed addressing this gap which has global applicability for offshore wind energy exploitation. It is based on Analytical Hierarchy Process and pairwise comparison methods linked to site spatial assessment in a geographical information system. The method is applied to Egypt, which currently plan to scale renewable energy capacity from 1 GW to 7.5 GW by 2020, likely to be through offshore wind. We introduce the applicability of the spatial analysis, based on multi-criteria decision analysis providing accurate estimates of the offshore wind from suitable locations in Egypt. Three high wind suitable areas around the Red Sea were identified with minimum restrictions that can produce around 33 GW of wind power. Suitability maps are also included in the paper providing a blueprint for the development of wind farms in these sites. The developed methodology is generalised and is applicable globally to produce offshore wind suitability map for appropriate offshore wind locations.

Strategic Planning of Offshore Wind Farms in Greece

“…These marine areas are officially used by the National Army either for training purposes or as firing fields and therefore cannot be considered for any other use. The present criterion is taken into consideration by [8,15,33,34,37].…”

“…Although several applications in various spatial planning scales can be found in the literature [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], the applications of OWF siting at national scale are really handful. Only five out of seventeen [8,10,14,17,19], refer to site suitability analyses on a national spatial planning scale. More specifically, [8] applied five factors and seven constraints using multi-criteria decision making and GIS models to provide a suitability map for offshore wind energy in Egypt.…”

“…Only five out of seventeen [8,10,14,17,19], refer to site suitability analyses on a national spatial planning scale. More specifically, [8] applied five factors and seven constraints using multi-criteria decision making and GIS models to provide a suitability map for offshore wind energy in Egypt. The analysis was conducted at large scale covering the whole of Egypt and its surrounding waters.…”

“…Considering the tools and techniques that have been applied so far in the OWF siting literature, several researchers have applied multi-criteria techniques to rank OWF siting alternatives (e.g., [8,[12][13][14]), indicating that multi-criteria decision analysis plays a crucial role in OWF siting. GIS presents also an important tool for the identification and the selection of suitable sites for the installation of wind farms either on land or in the marine environment [25].…”

“…GIS presents also an important tool for the identification and the selection of suitable sites for the installation of wind farms either on land or in the marine environment [25]. It has been used globally in many countries for the site selection of offshore wind projects, such as Egypt [8], Ohio-USA [9], China [10], Greece [11][12][13][14], South Korea [15], Spain [16], Thailand [26], etc.…”