Design and Implementation of Site Suitability Model of Solar Energy in Riyadh Using GIS-AHP Approach

In Saudi Arabia, electricity demand has increased in the last few years. As a result, Saudi Arabia plans to include around 40 GW of solar photovoltaics to support electricity generation by 2030. Finding suitable sites for solar photovoltaic is a complicated process due to the number of interdependent factors such as solar radiation, land uses, slope, and so on. To the best of our knowledge, no study has addressed the problem of site evaluation for solar PV in the Riyadh region. Therefore, a spatial multi-criteria decision analysis method is proposed to identify the suitable areas for installing solar energy projects. Accordingly, this study provides a detailed methodology and implementation steps of the spatial MCDA method that used a GIS-based analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique. The results show that Dawadmi, Al Majma’ah, Afif, Rumah, and Huraymila have the highest area within the most suitable class since they combine a high average solar radiation with a low temperature of 25.95 °C, also having a slope with value less than 5, which make this area flat. Huryimla can be considered one of the best candidates since the areas of high suitability cover more than 90% of the total area of this city. Furthermore, Al-Aflaj has the most area in the least suitable class due to its high temperature and non-south-facing distribution. On the other hand, despite having strong sun radiation, Wadi ad-Dawasir is not included in having a suitability rate above 80% because it has the greatest temperatures at values of 27.9 °C. Regarding As Sulayyil, it is excluded from candidate areas since it is far from the road network and electricity grid, as well as having 27.3 °C.