Abstract
The majority of electricity in Turkey is generated from coal and natural gas; however, renewable energy, especially wind power, is a promising energy source for Turkey. Development of new wind energy project requires complex planning process involving many social, technical, economic, environmental, political concerns and different agents such as investors, utilities, governmental agencies or social groups. To address the proper site selection, a Geographic Information System (GIS) based Multi- Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method has been used in previous studies. The aim of this study is to develop a GIS-based multi-criteria decision making application which can be updated by the changing regulations to identify potential sites for wind power plants in Turkey. A variety of constraints and factors were identified based on a literature review, regulations and gathered from variety of agencies. After excluding of infeasible sites, pairwise comparisons was carried out using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as MCDM method by the study group to estimate relative importance of the criteria. The suitability map obtained from MCDM analysis was divided into four classes from the low suitable to extremely suitable area. As a final stage, decision making was carried out with the objectives by environmental impact approach. The output of this study can be used by energy planners to estimate the extent that wind energy can be developed based on public perception, administrative and environmental aspects.