Selena Farris Atmospheric Science MSc Student

For the final project, I will examining techniques for wind farm siting in BC. This is the process of selecting locations for potential wind farms. Using mapping techniques, hot spot analysis, and viewshed analysis, this study attempts to determine suitable locations for wind farms, prior to any on site inspection or data collection.

Using modelled wind speed data and topographic data, an initial elimination was completed. Wind speed data was restricted to annual average values over 6.5 m/s, slopes were restricted to grades less than 8%. A layer containing parks and transmission lines was also included in the analysis. This data represented geographically plausible locations for wind farms.

A viewshed analysis was preformed to ensure that none of the wind farms were within regions that were visible from populated places. Areas that were located within a visible range from cities were eliminated from the study.

Finally, a hot spot analysis was run for each region to determine areas suitable for housing numerous turbines which would make wind farm development economically. Parameters for the nearest neighbour hierarchical hot spot analysis included minimum clusters of 20 turbines and distances of 10 km.

Results showed that based on the parameters of this study, British Columbia has capacity to hold 4,729 turbines. Assuming that all of the turbines are rated at 3 MW, this would produce enough energy to cover 62% of BC’s energy needs.