Evaluation of natural conditions for site selection of ground-mounted photovoltaic power plants in Serbia

In recent decades, many countries tend to increase the use of renewable energy sources. Serbia has good natural conditions for the exploitation of solar energy. This paper integrates geographic information system and multi-criteria evaluation approach in order to select the best sites for development of ground-mounted photovoltaic power plants. The spatial suitability index was calculated for the whole territory of Serbia. It is shown that northern part, especially Banat region, possesses the largest potential for development of solar projects. Comparing obtained results with locations of existing photovoltaic power plants in Serbia, certain disagreements were noted. This is due to the application of exclusion criteria that except agricultural land even if the quality of the soil is poor. Beside the geographic distribution of suitable land, this study has shown that the largest electric power generation potentials have the City of Zrenjanin, Municipality of Novi Betel and Municipality of Coka. Potentially, they can generate enough electricity to substitute whole yearly electricity production in Serbia. At the end, the subject of research was focused on the best ranked parcels, showing the potential electricity generation and the inter-annual variability in energy production based on module temperature. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.