Suitability Investigation and Technical Assessment Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for Offshore Wind Farms in the Philippines

Abstract

This study aims to identify the potential sites based on a set of decision criteria and employ a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Geographical data were processed into standardized layers by utilizing the Geographic Information System (GIS) capability of ArcGIS Desktop. The final suitability maps were generated from the product of the weighted analysis for factors layers, Boolean Raster from the constraints model, and wind speed datasets. Eight scenarios were produced in which Scenario 3A and Scenario 4A were selected as the most preferred set-up for bottom-fixed set-up and floating-type platforms, respectively. These two scenarios adopted the averaged factors and 200 m altitude datasets as they provided the highest technical resource potential for wind energy extraction of 710.78 GW for shallow bathymetric maps and 4,054.44 GW for deep waters. Locations with a suitability score index of 0.6 – 1.0 were observed as having good quality wind resources ranging from 9.07 m/s to 11.67 m/s. They were in the north of Ilocos Norte, the southeast portion of Oriental Mindoro, the southern part of Iloilo province, and some sections in Guimaras Strait. Finally, Wind Turbine #1 (Enercon E-126 7.580) was favored as it showed the largest Annual Energy Production (AEP) of 30,336,475 MWh/y for Scenario 3A and 172,894,869 MWh/y for Scenario 4A.