Analysis of Solar Farm Site Selection Based on TOPSIS Approach

2. Literature Review

Renewable energy importance is growing due to environmental problems of fossil fuels and their depletion. Renewable energy utilization and development became a hot topic due to problems which are attributed to climate change (Nakumuryango & Inglesi-Lotz, 2016). Developed countries such as US and Japan widely invested (Li, He, & Li, 2016) in renewable energy which can be attributed to its importance in future years. The potential of renewable energies is enormous and has capacity to provide energy requirement easily (The geopolitics of renewables; exploring the political implications of renewable energy systems, 2016). Various types of renewable energies are available such as geothermal, wind energy, biomass, solar energy etc. Development strategy of renewable energy is significantly dependent on suitable use of the type on energy according to local conditions (Li, He, & Li, 2016). For instance, geothermal energy is the main renewable energy which is developed in Iceland while wind energy is more popular and used in Denmark or Germany (Li, He, & Li, 2016).

Renewable energies have been applied in industry, residential, transportation sectors in recent years. As it was mentioned earlier, two main parameters are the type of appropriate renewable energy and the location of installation which are involved in renewable energy policy definition. Both of these parameters change from a region to another region. Appropriate monitoring and analyzing obtained data are essential to achieve the best possible result in energy planning and policy definition of a country.