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GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia

Increasing urbanisation and population growth are making it difficult for governments to achieve sustainable development. Provision of clean energy is among the seventeen sustainable development goals, as it reduces reliance on fossil fuels. In recent years, Namibia has rapidly increased her relianc...

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Main Author: Kamati, Klaudia
Other Authors: Smit, Julian
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics 2023
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access_status_str Open Access
author Kamati, Klaudia
author2 Smit, Julian
author_browse Kamati, Klaudia
Smit, Julian
author_facet Smit, Julian
Kamati, Klaudia
author_sort Kamati, Klaudia
collection Thesis
description Increasing urbanisation and population growth are making it difficult for governments to achieve sustainable development. Provision of clean energy is among the seventeen sustainable development goals, as it reduces reliance on fossil fuels. In recent years, Namibia has rapidly increased her reliance on sustainable energy. The renewable energy sources (RESs), including wind and solar energy, can be described as clean sources which have lesser negative environmental impact compared to conventional energy sources. Amongst the pressing challenges today is finding solutions on efficient solar and wind energy production. It is imperative to work out the optimum location of RESs before installing them. This can significantly improve performance and establishes the foundation for studying both solar and wind power in a site selection problem. This study aims to determine potential locations for wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) energy plants installation using one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and a geographic information system (GIS) within the Central North Regional Electricity Distributor (CENORED) supply area. Combining GIS with MCDM results in a powerful technique for selecting potential sites, since GIS provides effective analysis, manipulation, and visualization of geospatial data, whereas MCDM provides consistent weighing of criteria. In the evaluations of the location: topographical, environmental, climatic and regulations constraints were considered as factors that may facilitate or hinder the deployment of solarwind energy power plants. For solar PV energy plant, the highest potential areas are in the north-west, south-west and study area's southern regions, whereas for the wind power plant, only the northwest part is a highly suitable location for wind energy plants installation. These findings can be used to determine most favourable location of interest for solar PV and wind power plant development or to support the integration of electrical grid expansion and off-grid electrification strategies.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2023
publishDateRange 2023
publishDateSort 2023
publisher School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics
publisherStr School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/38026 GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia Kamati, Klaudia Smit, Julian Orti, Miguel Engineering Increasing urbanisation and population growth are making it difficult for governments to achieve sustainable development. Provision of clean energy is among the seventeen sustainable development goals, as it reduces reliance on fossil fuels. In recent years, Namibia has rapidly increased her reliance on sustainable energy. The renewable energy sources (RESs), including wind and solar energy, can be described as clean sources which have lesser negative environmental impact compared to conventional energy sources. Amongst the pressing challenges today is finding solutions on efficient solar and wind energy production. It is imperative to work out the optimum location of RESs before installing them. This can significantly improve performance and establishes the foundation for studying both solar and wind power in a site selection problem. This study aims to determine potential locations for wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) energy plants installation using one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and a geographic information system (GIS) within the Central North Regional Electricity Distributor (CENORED) supply area. Combining GIS with MCDM results in a powerful technique for selecting potential sites, since GIS provides effective analysis, manipulation, and visualization of geospatial data, whereas MCDM provides consistent weighing of criteria. In the evaluations of the location: topographical, environmental, climatic and regulations constraints were considered as factors that may facilitate or hinder the deployment of solarwind energy power plants. For solar PV energy plant, the highest potential areas are in the north-west, south-west and study area's southern regions, whereas for the wind power plant, only the northwest part is a highly suitable location for wind energy plants installation. These findings can be used to determine most favourable location of interest for solar PV and wind power plant development or to support the integration of electrical grid expansion and off-grid electrification strategies. 2023-07-05T14:33:19Z 2023-07-05T14:33:19Z 2023 2023-07-05T14:32:25Z Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/38026 eng application/pdf School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment
spellingShingle Engineering
Kamati, Klaudia
GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
thesis_degree_str Master's
title GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
title_full GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
title_fullStr GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
title_full_unstemmed GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
title_short GIS-Based Site Suitability Analysis for Wind and Solar Photovoltaics Energy Plants in Central North Region, Namibia
title_sort gis based site suitability analysis for wind and solar photovoltaics energy plants in central north region namibia
topic Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/38026
work_keys_str_mv AT kamatiklaudia gisbasedsitesuitabilityanalysisforwindandsolarphotovoltaicsenergyplantsincentralnorthregionnamibia