Micro-Siting of Floating Turbines Through Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making

Abstract

Multi-Criteria Decision Methods (MCDM) as a complement to current practices for identifying an initial compromise solution to the problem of wind turbine micro-siting are proposed. MCDM deals with multiple objectives in decision-making. The main goal of these methods is to choose among several alternatives using decision criteria previously defined. The use of MCDM guarantees the identification of the alternative that better performs than all the others according to the selected criteria. After a literature review on available methods for micro-siting of offshore wind turbines in a specific location, and an introduction to the MCDM, the usefulness and potential of MCDM in siting floating wind turbines is highlighted. The MCDM methods can add new parameters to the floating wind farms’ layout process. The results of this study support the potential role of these methods as crucial tools to technology developers and decision-makers.