Title: Methodological Framework for Determining the Land Eligibility of Renewable Energy Sources,
Abstract: The quantity and distribution of land which is eligible for renewable energy
sources is fundamental to the role these technologies will play in future
energy systems. As it stands, however, the current state of land eligibility
investigation is found to be insufficient to meet the demands of the future
energy modelling community. Three key areas are identified as the predominate
causes of this; inconsistent criteria definitions, inconsistent or unclear
methodologies, and inconsistent dataset usage. To combat these issues, a land
eligibility framework is developed and described in detail. The validity of
this framework is then shown via the recreation of land eligibility results
found in the literature, showing strong agreement in the majority of cases.
Following this, the framework is used to perform an evaluation of land
eligibility criteria within the European context whereby the relative
importance of commonly considered criteria are compared.