A GIS-Based BWM Approach for the Location Selection of Solar Power Plant in Tunceli Province (Turkey)

The world has recently tended to turn to renewable energy sources due to the serious negative impact of fossil fuels on the environment. One of the top priorities for solar energy is the selection of the most suitable location of the solar power plant to be established. In this study, the most suitable solar power plant location selection for Tunceli, a province located in the eastern part of Turkey, is studied with an approach based on Geographic Information System (GIS) and the best-worst method (BWM). A weighting was performed using the BWM model for 16 sub-criteria under four the main criteria of “climatic conditions, geographical conditions, land conditions, and location (distance to crucial points)”. Afterward, maps were created for these criteria, and a 6-point scale in the legends of each map for each sub-criteria was applied. Finally, the most suitable locations were determined with GIS-based calculations.