Optimal site selection for wind energy: a case study

ABSTRACT

Renewable energy sources (RES) have gained attraction in recent years. The optimal site selection problem is one of the most important problems in the area of RES. In this study, the optimum site selection problem for wind energy, which is one of the RES types, is discussed. Eighty-one provinces in Turkey are evaluated using the Pareto diagram and the provinces with high potential wind energy are obtained. Long-term electricity consumption estimates are performed for the 13 provinces using ARIMA and Time Series Analysis methods. Also, in the article, an integrated optimum site selection problem in GAMS 23.5 software is modeled by the predicted future energy demand. As a result of the study, the total 41 installation decisions are made for the strategic optimal site selection decision between 2021 and 2025 years. Minimizing the total cost proposed as an objective function of the developed mathematical programming model, the total cost is found as 52526500 currency unit. It is seen that the decision to install the power plant is mostly made for Balıkesir, Çanakkale and İzmir, and the number of plants for the provinces are 6, 6 and 5, respectively. The computational results show that the developed model produces effective solutions and minimizes the total cost by focusing on strategic optimal site decisions. According to the sensitivity analysis results, increasing the percentage of use in wind energy approximately 4–5% from 3.5% in total percentage will reduce the total cost by approximately 3.62%.

KEYWORDS:

• Renewable energy sources
• wind energy
• mathematical programming model
• prediction methods
• optimal site selection

Acknowledgments

Thanks Republic of Turkey Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and Mustafa ÇALIŞKAN from Republic of Turkey Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources for giving the potential data of provinces.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Onur Derse

Onur Derse is working as a Lecturer in the Department of Management and Organization of Tarsus University, Mersin, Turkey. His main research areas include operations research, risk analysis, mathematical programming models, optimization, and renewable energy.

Ebru Yılmaz

Ebru Yılmaz is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey. Her main research areas include operations research, mathematical programming models, optimization, and modeling of manufacturing and service systems.