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62 CHAPTER 2 Solar PV Power Plants Site Selection: A Review

it can screen out inconsistent judgments. In addition, the availability of commercial
software supports the method to overcome the influence of rank reversal. Overall,
AHP has been accepted by the international scientific community as a robust and
flexible MCDM technique to facilitate solving complex decision problems [67].
Chandio et al. [68] reviewed the GIS-based AHP as MCDA instrument for land suit-
ability assessment and concluded that the integration of GIS using AHP offered DM
with an efficient tool for land suitability analysis and proven to improve efficiency
from the economic aspect. It is important to notice from the study that the GIS-based
AHP application in spatial problems has been growing significantly for the past three
decades. In Egypt, Effat [4] used GIS and remote sensing tools along with applying
AHP to calculate the criteria weight to spatial multicriteria evaluation model. Simi-
larly, Uyan [5] applied AHP combined with GIS for solar farms site selection in
Konya, Turkey. A large area of Southern England was assessed for suitability for
the wind and solar farms by Watson and Hudson [6] who incorporates AHP to weigh
the criteria and use GIS to find the most suitable lands for both resources. Rumbayan
and Nagaska employed AHP and GIS to prioritize renewable energy resources (So-
lar, Wind, and Geothermal) in 30 provinces in Indonesia [7]. They applied AHP
model to determine the weight of each criterion and subcriterion. The GIS-AHP
applications are among the most often used approaches for integrating with other de-
cision support techniques. We observed that besides the uses of AHP as a stand-
alone method, some studies exist on AHP integration with other MCDM including
TOPSIS, WLC, and fuzzy methods. Noteworthy studies of Charabi and Gastli [15]
who conducted an assessment study of the land suitability for large PV farms imple-
mentation in Oman. They proposed AHP-WLC using fuzzy quantifiers in GIS to-
ward developing an index for land suitability for PV and CSP farms.
Several authors consider WLC and its models such as simple additive weighting,
weighted summation, weighted linear average, and weighted overlay
[33e36,42,44e48,61]. The criterion weights, w k , and value functions, v(a ik ), are
the main parts of this technique. The criterion weight w k is the allocated importance
value of criteria k th to other criteria while the value function v(a ik ) is the worth level
of the alternative i (i ¼ 1, 2. m) with respect to that criterion k (k ¼ 1, 2. n).
For the k th criteria to be minimized the following equation applied. The ease
of implementation within the GIS environment is the main advantages of WLC since
it can easily be implemented using map algebra operations. Accordingly, GIS-WLC
has been applied for several studies analyzing the decision. Once the weights ob-
tained, they incorporated with the criteria map layers using a combination rule
such as WLC. This method is more suitable for problems holding a large number
of alternatives that will be impossible to perform a pairwise comparison of the
alternatives. WLC and related models are often applied in site suitability, resource
availability, and land-use analysis. Malczewski, in his book titled Multicriteria
Decision Analysis in Geographic Information Science, stated that “WLC considered
as the most often used GIS-MADA”; while he discussed some weakness of this
tool including linearity assumptions, generally he highlighted the strength of
such approaches including easily understanding how an implementation in GIS