Norwegian Offshore Wind Power -- Spatial Planning Using Multi-Criteria
Decision Analysis
Abstract
The Norwegian government recently agreed on the goal 30by40 which
involves opening Norwegian offshore areas to host 30 GW of installed
wind power by 2040 (Regjeringen, 2022).We address this goal by
presenting a first mapping of wind power suitability scores (WPSS) for
the entire Norwegian economic zone (NEZ) using a multi-criteria decision
analysis framework (MCDA), including an analytical hierarchical process
(AHP) approach. We obtain WPSS considering relevant criteria like wind
resources, techno-economic aspects, social acceptance, environmental
considerations, and met-ocean constraints such as wind and wave
conditions. The results starts with a baseline scenario, where the
criteria importance are pair-vise compared in the context of balancing
economic incentives and conflicting interests. Additionally, to reveal
regions that are robust to changes in criteria importance we carry out a
sensitivity analysis by introducing three additional scenarios. These
scenarios represent actors with distinct preferences for siting of wind
farms: the investor, the environmentalist, and the fisherman. The
results show that the southern part of the NEZ is the most suitable
region for offshore wind power deployment. This region receives the
highest suitability category (“very high” suitability for wind power
application) throughout all the scenarios. Areas in the Norwegian part
of the Barents Sea and the near-coastal areas outside mid-Norway are
also well suited regions, but these are more sensitive to the choice of
criteria importance. The use of AHP within the framework of MCDA is
shown to be a promising tool for pinpointing the best Norwegian offshore
areas for wind power application.