A GIS-based interactive web decision support system for planning wind farms in Tuscany (Italy)

In the framework of regional renewable energy policies, starting from 2008 the Tuscany Regional Authority promoted the "WIND-GIS" project aimed at assessing the large-scale wind potential of Tuscany region, Italy. This goal was achieved by developing an integrated Geographic Information System (GIS) based decision support system (DSS), compliant with Directive 2007/2/EC of European Commission (EC), which was designed to help public operators in the preliminary location of sites eligible for wind harness. To make the system an actually operative tool, it was conceived as a web-oriented interactive system that the public operators may freely access. The DSS was developed by using the MapServer open-source web-GIS application. Furthermore, the "p.mapper" front-end application developed in JavaScript and PHP/Mapscript was used, which enables a user-friendly interface to MapServer to be performed. System's wind resource data are estimated by the 2-km resolution application over Tuscany of a meteorological model chain through a 4-year period (January 2004 December 2007) with a 1-h time-step. Wind estimations at 75 m were taken into account in order to be addressed to large-scale wind turbines according to the Tuscany Energy Plan objectives of 300 MW installed power derived from wind within 2012. Furthermore, to overcome the problems posed by all groups involved with initially opposing positions in the location for new wind farms (e.g., investors vs. environmentalist groups), the DSS also encompasses a number of layers such as landscape, ecological and archaeological constrained areas. This paper presents the description of the DSS, as well as the application results in terms of maps of wind resource and energy yield once a 2-MW wind turbine has been set as a sample. The developed DSS is currently in use by the Tuscany Regional Authority for planning the regional wind energy strategy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.