Multi-criteria GIS-Based Assessment of Solar Power Plant Site Suitability in Gönen District, Isparta, Türki̇ye

Abstract

Solar energy has an important place among clean energy sources due to its environmental friendliness, energy supply security and sustainability features. In this research, the most suitable areas for Solar Power Plants (SPPs) in the Gönen district of Isparta were determined by applying a GIS-based Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) multi-criteria analysis. In the study, SPP site suitability factors such as elevation, slope, aspect, temperature, Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), annual precipitation, wind speed, Land Surface Temperature (LST), distance to roads and energy transmission lines, and land-use suitability were considered as the main criteria in SPP site selection. The top three criteria in SPP site selection were slope (18.8%), aspect (17.5%), and GHI (15.8%). Less influential factors are land use (3.9%), elevation (2.5%), and distance to roads (2.1%) and energy transmission lines (2.0%). According to the resulting SPP suitability map 16.55% of the district is in the “very high” suitability class, 27.55% in the “high” suitability class, and 27.21% in the “moderate” suitability class. Furthermore, more than 80% of the existing solar power plants lie in “high” and “very high” suitability classes. This emphasizes the appropriateness of the criteria used in this study and also the technique applied.