Selection of wind power sites

SiteScreening is the natural continuation of a wind resource study of a medium size region. SiteScreening consists of the identification of areas with a good wind resource and electrical grid availability, and simultaneously free of environmental and geographical issues and any other potential constraints.

The SiteScreening process is implemented using both Geographical Information System (GIS) and in-house written software. Once the wind resource map of the region of interest has been done, the main exclusion zones are identified and incorporated to the project. The process is highly adaptable in order to easily include any additional criteria suggested by the client. The main exclusion zones are typically environmentally protected areas, inhabited areas, rivers, lakes and other wetlands and areas with non suitable terrain slopes. The existing transmission lines are also added to the project and both the distance and the cost of building new lines between any new sites and the existing transmission lines are calculated.

Finally a set of the most promising wind power sites is established. These potential sites are ranked by both cost of produced electricity and proposed installed capacity. The results of the whole process sum up the most promising identified sites.

The results of the study are handed in as an electronic ArcReader project, showing in different layers the identified promising areas and the information applied to produce the selection. These criteria are typically the modelled wind resource map, topography (slopes), protected areas, roads and transmission lines. All this information is completed with a table listing the proposed projects and its main characteristics.