Systematic Review of Site-Selection Processes in Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy Research

Abstract

Wind energy has a leading role in achieving a low-carbon or completely carbon-free energy sector in the near future. Scientific research on the site-selection aspects of onshore and offshore wind farms is of great importance, contributing to sustainable, technically and economically viable, and socially acceptable wind energy projects. This systematic review provides direct analysis and assessment of existing site-selection procedures and addresses a gap in knowledge in the onshore and offshore wind energy research field, identifying trends in the thematic modules of site-selection issues. Important insights and useful trends are highlighted in: (1) site-selection methodologies; (2) the type, number, and exclusion limits of exclusion criteria; (3) the type, number, importance, priority, and suitability classes of assessment criteria; (4) studies’ geographic locations; (5) spatial planning scales; (6) wind resource analysis; (7) sensitivity analysis; (8) participatory planning approaches, groups, and contributions; (9) laws, regulations, and policies related to wind farm siting; (10) suitability index classifications (i.e., linguistic and numeric); and (11) micro-siting configuration of wind turbines. Identified insights and trends could motivate the conduction of updated site-selection analyses on onshore and offshore wind energy research, addressing the determined gaps and enhancing global siting implementations.

Industrial energy efficiency assessment and prioritization model - An approach based on multi-criteria method PROMETHEE

“…Büyüközkan and Güleryüz [25], for example, present an energy model of source selection with fuzzy preference relations. These techniques can also be applied in site selection problems for wind farms [26,27] or for solar power plants [28], geolocalization for photovoltaic farms [29], and for analyzing the energy efficiency of emerging economies [30]. Fossile et al [31] present an energy selection for Brazilian ports using the Flexible and Interactive (FITradeoff) method, which Bernardo Keller Richter, Gabriela Hansen Marcondes, Nathalia Juca Monteiro, Sergio Eduardo Gouvea da Costa, Eduardo R. Loures, Fernando Deschamps and Edson Pinheiro de Lima was also utilized by Abreu Kang et al [32] for power generation selection for the Brazilian electricity matrix.…”

A hybrid approach of wind farm site selection using Group Best‐Worst Method and GIS‐Based Fuzzy Logic Relations. A case study in Vietnam

“…(2020) analyzed the barriers to the large‐scale implementation of onshore wind farms by category and location, and characterizing them by the level of economic development and stage of diffusion in their locations. Recently, Spyridonidou and Vagiona (2020) provided a systematic review of 53 studies oriented toward the site‐selection issue in on‐ and offshore wind energy research published in Mar 2019 to Jan 2020 and claimed that this study was the first to identify insights and trends in the site‐selection processes, and its related aspects, in spatial energy planning. An important finding of this study was that GIS‐based methodologies is precedent in solving the problems of wind energy sitting.…”

“…Many of them conducted offshore wind energy research (Oh et al, 2018;Rodrigues et al, 2015;Tian et al, 2021). On the other hands, among 29 MCDM methods applied in wind farm site selection under review of this study (Spyridonidou & Vagiona, 2020), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed by Saaty (1988) was the most frequent method used for assigning weights to decision criteria, accounting for 85% of both onshore and offshore wind energy sitting research. Limited studies applied other MCDM techniques such as Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) or Fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) (Nazari et al, 2020), VIšekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (VIKOR)-fuzzy VIKOR (Dang et al, 2021;Li et al, 2020;Villacreses et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2020;Zhou et al, 2018;Zhou, Lim, et al, 2019;Zhou, Wang, et al, 2019), ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité-ELimination and Choice Expressing the Reality (ELECTRE) (Erdin & Ozkaya, 2019), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation -PROMETHEE (Manoj et al, 2021), Analytic Network Process (ANP) (Azizi et al, 2014;Gigović et al, 2017;Nasehi et al, 2016).…”

A Study of Zero Bid Wind Farm for Future Scotland’s Energy Demands—A New Approach

“…Subsidy free offshore bids offer a competitive market price challenge to asset owners by representing the steep decline of costs and technological breakthroughs made for the generation of offshore wind energy [4][5][6][7]. Cheaper clean low carbon renewable energy is an important part of fighting climate change that will bring benefits to consumers and governments [8][9][10][11][12]. The system model which will utilize multiplication factors will be produced on an Excel spreadsheet, containing data from the list of potential sites identified in the sectoral marine plan.…”