Optimal site selection for wind farms - the role for Geographical Information Systems

This paper addresses the issues faced by developers in identifying suitable sites for wind farms. The selection criteria can be broadly classified into those which minimise environmental impact, including visual intrusion; maximise the resource potential; and minimise the development costs; or a compromise solution which considers all of these issues. Given a set of weighted inclusion and exclusion criteria, a geographical information system (GIS) can easily model this information to determine the optimal wind farm sites. The paper illustrates a flexible approach to achieving this goal, which is driven by the specific requirements of any user. (author)