Onshore wind farm siting and energy carrying capacity in the municipality of Aristotle in Chalkidiki – Greece

Wind power is one of the most environmentally friendly Renewable Energy Sources, as well as one of the rapidly growing and economically viable forms of renewable energy. Today's wind turbines can be considered as a mature and cost-effective technology with reasonable efficiency rates and high reliability. The aim of this paper is to identify the appropriate areas for onshore wind farm siting, considering the restrictions imposed by the national (Greek) institutional framework for wind farm siting (Special Framework for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development for renewable energy sources / SFSPSD-RES) as well as several exclusion criteria found in the international literature. The methodology includes: i) analysis of the study area, ii) exclusion of incompatible areas, iii) exclusion of incompatible zones and iv) site area limitations. Wind velocity, slope, distances from specific areas (e.g. protected areas, settlements, monasteries, surface waters, mines) as well as from specific infrastructures (e.g. road network, electricity grid, antennas) are considered as exclusion criteria used in defining sustainable sites for wind farm deployment. The proposed methodology is applied in the Municipality of Aristotle in Chalkidiki – Greece and the main tool used in the analysis is Geographic Information System. The above analysis highlighted four appropriate areas for wind farm siting in the study area. The ownership status as well as the energy carrying capacity of the selected sites are further investigated.