GIS-based approach for modeling grid-connected solar power potential sites: a case study of East Shewa Zone, Ethiopia

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location map of the study area.

Table 1. Data used for the present study.

GIS data layer	Description	Data sources
Vector (Polygon)	Study area boundary	Central Statistical Agency (CSA, 2007)
Vector (Polygon)	Settlement (Town) boundary	Central Statistical Agency (CSA, 2007)
Vector (Lines)	Road network	Central Statistical Agency (CSA, 2007)
Vector (Lines)	Power grid lines network	Ethiopian electric utility
Attribute Data	Zonal Metrological Station records	National Metrological Agency (NMA)
Raster Data	Solar radiation	Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) from USGS (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov)
Raster	Land-use/land-cover	Landsat 8 OLI, 2016 (http://glovis.usgs.gov)
Raster	Elevation	Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and reflection Radiometer (ASTER)
Raster	Aspect and slope	DEM 30 m ASTER (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov)

Figure 2. Model structure for generating optimal sites for solar farm.

Table 2. Nine-point importance scale.

1/9	1/7	1/5	1/3	1	3	5	7	9
Extremely	Very strongly	Strongly	Moderately	Equally important	Moderately	Strongly	Very Strongly	Extremely
	Less important						More important

Table 3. Suitability criteria and constraints for PV solar farm site selection.

Criteria identification		Solar power plant suitability selection criteria
Category	Factors		Authors
Potential solar power	Global solar power values	Suitability values > 2,037,366.69 kWh/m^2/year or more	Aydin et al. (2013)
Land properties	Slope	Suitability – Stable topography (≤10°)	Charabi and Gastli (2010); Janke (2010)
	Aspect	Suitable slope aspect S, SE, SW, E, W
Proximity	Distance to roads	Suitable distance less than 7 km from the potential site	Tegou et al. (2010); Noorollahi et al. (2016)
	Distance to power grid	Suitable distance less than 7 km from the potential site	Tegou et al. (2010)
	Constraints
Non suitable areas	Densely Populated area	Area <2 km from the populated area – not suitable	Janke (2010); Uyan (2013).
	River and flood plain	Area upto1 km of buffer distance from the streams – not suitable	Charabi and Gastli (2011); Li (2013); Uyan (2013)
	Exposed rocks	Rocks exposed areas excluded – not suitable
	Forest area	Forested areas excluded – not suitable

Table 4. Factor criteria weights’ assignment and constraints used in the suitability model.

		Suitability level grades
		1	2	3	4
	Unit of 'measurement	High suitable	Suitable	Less suitable	Not suitable	Weight (%)
(a) Factors
Solar radiation	KWh/m^2	2,141,163.275 − 2.387,822	2,037,366.69–2,141,163.274	1,881,522.51–2,037, 306.968	732,612.125–1,881,522.59	33.73
Aspect	Direction	S, SE, SW	E and W	NE and NW	Flat and north	11.41
Slope	Degree	0−5	5−10	10−21	>21	29.06
Distance to Power grid	km	<3	3−7	7−12	>12	16.62
Distance to roads	km	1−3	3−7	7−12	>12	9.18
(b) Constraints
Forest area	Excluded (as these areas may not be suitable for the installation of PV systems).
Exposed rocks	Excluded (mostly they form steep slope sections or uneven topography that may not be suitable for installation of PV systems).
Densely populated areas	Areas within 2 km of buffer from densely populated areas were taken as constraint whereas areas beyond 2 km buffer zone were considered for the selection of suitable PV installations.
River flood plain	1 km of buffer distance from the streams was considered as a constraint in order to protect the PV solar power farm from the flooding.

Figure 3. Land-use and land-cover map.

Figure 4. Global solar radiation map (a), slope map (b), and (c) aspect map.

Figure 5. Distance to transmission line map (a) and (b) distance to roads map.

Figure 6. Urban constraints map (a) and (b) river and flood plain constraints map.

Figure 7. Monthly temporal variations of global radiation in the study area.

Figure 8. Suitability map for feasible grid-connected solar photovoltaic farm sites.

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