A SPATIAL PLANNING SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR WIND FARM CONSTRUCTION WITH MACRO AND MICRO PERSPECTIVES

Abstract. Wind energy is well-known Renewable energy that contributes to countries achieving their sustainable development goals, so governments have planned to increase electricity generation from wind energy in recent years. Selecting suitable places for installing wind farms is one of the most challenging parts of wind energy projects because of the necessity of identifying various parameters, which is considered a site selection problem and needs spatial planning to solve. Furthermore, in constructing a wind farm, finding the optimum placement of wind turbines, known as the wind farm layout optimization (WFLO) problem, is crucial for obtaining maximum total power capacity while minimizing the number of turbines installed. In this research, the analysis is divided into two macro and micro levels to find an efficient and comprehensive approach. In the first level, after removing the restricted area, the MCDM method is used to find the most suitable sites, considering economic, social, and environmental criteria. After selecting one of the most suitable areas located in the middle of Alborz province, the GA algorithm as a meta-heuristic method is employed to solve the WFLO problem at the micro level. The essential criterion in this level is the wake effect among turbines which is simulated according to the Jensen model. As a test case, the selected area was subdivided into 144 cells that, after micro siting, 28 V47-660-45 turbines were placed, which could have a total power of 8732.283 kW capacity.