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A GIS-based Boolean logic-analytical hierarchy process for solar power plant (case study: Erbil Governorate—Iraq)

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Abstract

The remarkable increase in population and industrial development has brought priority to the installation of solar power plants in developing countries. Solar power site selection is a complicated task, which involves spatial assessment, driving environment, economic and climatological factors. For different site selection studies, multi-criteria estimation was used. This study utilized GIS and Boolean-AHP model to perform solar power site selection in Erbil governorate. The study proposed three scenarios: economic weight scenario, environment weight scenario and equal weight scenario. The final index model identifies four groups: unsuitable, low suitable, moderately suitable and highly suitable. Consequently, the study identified 369 candidate sites to install the solar power farms, interestingly; about 85% of the candidate sites are located in the southern and central part of the study area.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography Department, Faculty of Arts, Soran University, Kurdistan Region, Soran, 44008, Iraq

    Gaylan Rasul Faqe Ibrahim & Azad Rasul

  2. Department of Geography, College of Human Sciences, University of Halabja, Halabja, 46006, Iraq

    Gaylan Rasul Faqe Ibrahim, Arieann Ali Hamid & Umkalthum Mustafa Darwesh

Authors
  1. Gaylan Rasul Faqe Ibrahim
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  2. Arieann Ali Hamid
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  3. Umkalthum Mustafa Darwesh
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  4. Azad Rasul
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Contributions

Conceptualization, GRFI; Data curation, GRFI; Formal analysis, GRFI; Methodology, GRFI; Software, GRFI; Validation, GRFI; Visualization, GRFI; Writing—original draft, GRFI and AR; Writing—review & editing, AAH, UMD and AR.

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Correspondence to Gaylan Rasul Faqe Ibrahim.

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Ibrahim, G.R.F., Hamid, A.A., Darwesh, U.M. et al. A GIS-based Boolean logic-analytical hierarchy process for solar power plant (case study: Erbil Governorate—Iraq). Environ Dev Sustain 23, 6066–6083 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00862-3

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