A simple Multi-Criteria Evaluation will be performed to identify areas that are more likely to support wind turbines based on the new regulations introduced in China in 2011 (Carbon Trust, 2014). Therefore, we have organized the requirements and limits into two categories—factors and constraints
Factors are elements that will impact where the wind turbines are placed. The factors that we have chosen were based on the Detailed appraisal of the offshore wind industry in China, provided by Carbon Trust, in association with CECEP, CWEA, and the British Embassy Beijing (2014), in which it identified water depth, distance from the shoreline, and wind speed as determining factors.
As for constraints, it is the binary elements that preclude wind turbines from being built; the restrictions. We have chosen to follow regulations introduced in 2011 by the NEA and SOA through the “Implementation Rules of the Interim Measures for the Management of Development and Construction of Offshore Wind Power” which states that wind farms must be at least 10km from shore (Carbon Trust, 2014). In addition, we have also included oil and gas fields, protected ecosystems, and submarine cables and pipelines as areas to avoid per the research by Hong and Moller (2011).
After determining factors and constraints, we will normalize the data to a consistent scale for comparison. This will be done through the reclassify tool as well as the fuzzy membership tool which transforms the input raster into a 0 to 1 scale, indicating the strength of a membership in a set (ESRI, n.d.). We will then weight the relative importance based on the Analytical Hierarchal Approach. Once the weight is determined and the data is normalized, we would use the Weighted Sum tool to overlay the layers and visually identify areas suitable for placing wind turbines.
Finally, we will implement a sensitivity analysis to illustrate how results can be affected based on differing weights to analyze how regulations on factors and constraints are able to impact informed decisions.