A Fuzzy Approach for Modeling Potential Wind Farm Areas: A Case of Hitosa Woreda, Oromia Region, Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2016-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Being cleaner and climate friendly, wind energy has been increasingly utilized to meet the evergrowing
global energy demands. In Ethiopia, a wide gap exists between wind resources and
actual energy production, and it is imperative to expand the wind energy production. This study
was conducted in Hitosa Woreda, which is located in East Showa Zone of Oromia Region, in the
Rift valley area of the country. The main objective of this study was to identify potential wind
farm sites in the study area using fuzzy approach. The development of new wind farm energy
project requires studying of many parameters to achieve maximum benefits at the cost of
minimum environmental impacts. While site selection, there is a problem comes with prioritizing
criteria that determine the best location. Dealing with real life situation and experts' judgments
involves uncertainty. To solve this problem, a model containing Multi-Criteria Decision
Making (MCDM) technique that is Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with fuzzy theory
was designed to handle the uncertainty situations. Ten criteria were adopted in this method,
including wind speed, distance to roads, to rivers, from towns, from faults, closeness to power
line, slope, lithology, elevation, slope and exclusionary areas. The weights of the criteria of the
site were obtained through application of developed FAHP idea. Geographic Information System
(GIS) was used to overlay and generate criteria maps, and IDRISI 17.0 was used for fuzzy
aggregation and development of suitability map. The study ends with an assessment of proposed
sites to the generated suitability map. The results of the assessment showed that the northern
zones of the investigated region have high wind energy potentials. Such zones are appropriate for
setting up electricity generating wind turbines. From total investigated area of 1260sq. km. the
amount of extremely suitable zone was 96.902 sq. km, highly suitable zones was 152.194 sq. km,
moderately suitable zones is 179.11 sq. km, less suitable zones was 311.159 sq. km. The
suggested model may serve as a useful decision making tool for the energy planners and decision
makers, intending to develop wind farm energy in the present study area. This model is accepted
to help to identify suitable wind farm locations in other areas with a similar geographic back
ground.
Key words: Crisp, Fuzzy, FAHP, GIS, wind farm
Description
Keywords
Crisp, Fuzzy, FAHP, GIS, Wind farm