MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS FOR FUTURE OFFSHORE WIND FARMS IN ITALY – A DEVELOPED METHODOLOGY TO EVALUATE OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS

Abstract: Despite currently having only one operational offshore wind farm, Italy holds a significant potential for the future development of this technology. The Global Wind Council placed Italy second in its ranking of the world’s 30 most attractive markets regarding the potential of future offshore development, attracting the attention of numerous developers. The characteristics of the Mediterranean Sea, with its high water depth, make it possible to develop mainly floating technology. Furthermore, the absence of severe weather events, present in the Atlantic and the North Sea instead, enhanced security and contributed to the reduction of investment risks. Currently, there are many new wind farms awaiting approval, as evidenced by Terna, the Italian Transmission System Operator (TSO), which announced that by the end of October 2022 the connection requests for offshore wind projects had reached 95 GW. This thesis aims to develop an approach able to compare several projects from multiple perspectives. Specifically, the thesis applies the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to evaluate and compare four floating offshore wind farms which are now in the permitting phase. The projects are located off the coast of Sardinia, one of the most promising locations in the Mediterranean Sea for offshore wind installation. The evaluation of the future wind farms is conducted using eleven criteria, each assigned a different weight based on the preferences of six stakeholder groups. The tool used to rank the criteria is the PROMETHEE tool. The results demonstrate that each stakeholder group ranks the projects differently based on their respective preferences. Finally, an overall ranking of the wind farms is derived, identifying the most and least favorable projects.