Multi-Criteria GIS-based offshore wind farm site selection: Case study in Greece

The growing global demand for further penetration of renewable energy sources has highlighted Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) as a promising solution, particularly in Greece, due to its abundance of wind resources. To address the challenges of optimal OWFs location, this study presents an integrated approach that combines Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods with a Geographic Information System (GIS). The potential offshore sites have been evaluated across various technical, environmental, legislative, and safety criteria, utilizing incomplete information weights derived from the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). This approach accommodates inherent impreciseness in both the payoff table values and criteria weights, leading to the adoption of an extension of the VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenjee (VIKOR) method. The applied ranking process identified the most preferable sites in Greece, incorporating different decision makers’ perspectives. The methodology ranked 35 distinct sites in the Greek sea, including, but not limited to, areas south of Alexandroupoli, east of Xerokampos Crete, and near the Gulf of Patras. The novelty of this approach could play a pivotal role in the development of offshore wind power production within Greece’s energy transition context. Finally, the proposed framework can be easily generalized, replicated and adapted in any country, thus contributing to the optimal placement of OWFs at a global scale. • GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for offshore wind farm site selection. • Integration of official data in diverse formats as feature layers in GIS application. • Experimental evaluation of the methodology for ranking available OWF areas in Greece.