Finding the most suitable irrigation dams for hydropower development by using gis tools

This thesis aims to find the most suitable irrigation dams for hydropower development in Turkey to provide clean energy from an available resource by assessing on technical, spatial, and environmental criteria. The selected dams are arranged based on their suitability scores into three categories (high, medium and low) using a multi-criteria fuzzy logic tool that calculates the score separately for each criterion and then aggregates them into an overall suitability score. Six criteria are assessed: normal water level, reservoir storage capacity, dam purpose, years in operation, nearest substation distance and environment impact assessment requirement. The criterion of nearest substation distance was used to ensure that the benefits of potential power are consistent with the cost of grid connection. A methodology for finding best grid connection path is presented based on a multi-criteria geographic information system (GIS) spatial analyst to achieve the least cost, lowest power losses and lowest environmental impact. Two dams are chosen as case studies, Karadere and Karaçomak. For these dams, technical and spatial criteria are evaluated and the potential power and economic benefits are estimated. A least cost path methodology is applied to find the best grid connection path for each of those dams to their nearest substations.