English abstract
The study aims to identify the most appropriate locations for the installation of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in the Sultanate of Oman. GIS-based spatial multi-criteria evaluation approach, in terms of the FLOWA module was used to assess the land suitability for large CSP farms implementation in Oman. The tool used applies fuzzy quantifiers within ArcGIS environment allowing the integration of a multi-criteria decision analysis. Land suitability analysis for large CSP farms implementation was carried out for the case study of Oman. Different geospatial parameters was considered for this study, mainly related to direct solar radiation, road network, sensitive area.
The overlay results obtained from the analysis of the resultant maps showed that 41% of the total land area demonstrates a high suitability level. It was found that the CSP technology provides very high technical potential for implementing large solar plants. In fact, if all highly suitable land is completely exploited for CSP implementation, it can produce almost 45.5 times the present total power demand in Oman.
