Wind Energy

This article discusses a pre-development decision-making tool with applications for wind energy project siting. Noting siting conflicts between disparate stakeholders and interests, the article suggests the need for improved planning and decision support tools to minimize said conflicts (p.1840003-2). They develop a spatial multi-criteria decision analysis (SMCDA) tool called the Consensus-based Siting (ConSite) SMCDA tool suite.

The ConSite Wind module attempts to locate cost-effective sites with high wind potential, that minimize predefined indicators of environmental and social conflict related to wind project siting (p.1840003-11). Each criteria value includes a most and least acceptable value and a criteria weight (p.1840003-17). Criteria are grouped by technology, social, and ecology factors, each of which are weighted. Criteria include wind resource potential and optimal siting conditions for wind divorced from social and ecological factors. Similarly, Social factors include distance from protected or culturally significant sites and landscapes.