Evaluation of suitability of lands for solar power plants in burdur province with multi-criteria decision making methods

The development of technology and the increasing world population are leading to a growing demand for energy. For satisfying this demand causes environmental pollution and climate change due to carbon emissions. Moreover, the uneven distribution of fossil fuel resources around the world threatens the energy security of some countries. According to this reasons, the importance of renewable energy is rapidly increasing. Renewable energy sources include wind, solar, biomass, and hydro power. In this thesis, the site selection factor, which is crucial for low-cost and efficient use of photovoltaic solar power plants that convert solar energy into electricity, is evaluated. The suitability of areas in Burdur province in terms of photovoltaic solar power plants installation was evaluated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods. Machine learning algorithms were trained with the data obtained by AHP, and the performances of the algorithms were compared. Classification was performed with accuracy rates of over 99% using K-Nearest Neighbor, Random Forest, Support Vector Machines and XGBoost algorithms.