Airtricity www.airtricity.ie is the renewable energy development division of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).
Introduction
Airtricity www.airtricity.ie is the renewable energy development division of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).
The Client
Airtricity has responsibility for the development and construction of all SSE Renewable projects across Europe, including onshore and offshore wind farms, hydro, marine and solar projects. Airtricity currently has 13 windfarms in Ireland which produce 306MW and a further 4 onshore wind farms in Northern Ireland generating 67MW.
The Challenge
The decision on where to develop a new wind energy site is determined by a multitude of environmental factors including wind regime, site slope and aspect, geology, soil type and accessibility plus of course the availability of land for purchase or lease.
The Solution
Airtricity use ArcGIS Desktop to compile basic information for each site under consideration for development. This includes information such as Property Folio information with detail of land ownership, the locations of constraints to development such as occupied dwellings, forestry, national monuments and protected sites. This information is compiled into a Geodatabase for further analysis. Other environmental information is also sourced.
The Benefits
Once a site has been selected based on the suitability analysis Airtricity then use a custom ArcGIS tool developed by ESRI Ireland which allows the operator to select a buildable area, provide a predominant wind direction and give a specific ellipse size in rotor diameters e.g. 6 x 4 along with the diameter dimension in meters. The tool then runs iteratively to find the max number of turbines to fit in the area and calculates the centre points of turbine the ellipses.
The Technology
Airtricity use ArcGIS Desktop to compile basic information for each site under consideration for development. ArcGIS Spatial Analyst is then used to integrate this diverse information to determine where turbines can be built using a Geoprocessing model.
The model uses a sequence of ArcGIS Geoprocessing tools for overlay analysis to determine suitable and unsuitable areas for the development of windfarms having regard to constraints imposed by building locations (occupied dwellings), wind speed data, water courses, AONBs, SACs, SPAs, ASSIs, Nature Reserves, RAMSAR sites, transport corridors &utility corridors.
Many of these information sources originate from agencies that use ArcGIS. This greatly facilitates data exchange. The Geoprocessing model then outputs a map showing the sites most suitable for development.
ArcGIS Desktop & ArcGIS Geoprocessing Tools
Airtricity use ArcGIS Desktop to compile basic information for each site under consideration for development. ArcGIS Spatial Analyst is then used to integrate this diverse information to determine where turbines can be built using a Geoprocessing model. The model uses a sequence of ArcGIS Geoprocessing tools for overlay analysis to determine suitable and unsuitable areas for the development of windfarms having regard to constraints imposed by building locations (occupied dwellings), wind speed data, water courses, AONBs, SACs, SPAs, ASSIs, Nature Reserves, RAMSAR sites, transport corridors &utility corridors.
Many of these information sources originate from agencies that use ArcGIS. This greatly facilitates data exchange. The Geoprocessing model then outputs a map showing the sites most suitable for development.