Spatial Factors Consideration in Site Selection of Ground-mounted PV Power Plants

Typically, the demand of electricity is normally high in urban areas and it will be increasing sharply when there are some events attracting visitors to the urban area. Thailand, an example of this situation, has announced five mega-cities as the places for Meeting, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) since 2002. Definitely, Thai government and electricity organizations have supported the solar energy as the alternative energy due to the clean renewable energy and sustainability. Various factors, generally, social-economic and environmental factors have been intensively studied in order to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the PV system. According to a requirement of large area to construct a ground-mounted PV system, it is extremely crucial to carefully determine all related spatial factors for investigating the potential areas. This study aims to identify all those spatial factors considered in finding a potential area for PV power plant. This study applied the documentary analysis to explore the spatial factors from successful PV power plants. The real situations, impacts, and issues in term of spatial factors were compiled and designed as spatial database applicable to implement with the Geographic Information System. The result of this study shows the structured spatial database acquired in a ground-mounted PV system construction. This study is useful for governments, developers, and investors to investigate potential areas for PV power plants.