In this study, a set of original methods is introduced to advance the development of socially acceptable offshore wind projects (OWPs) at both global and national scales. Specifically, two complementary approaches are proposed: (1) a preparatory framework designed to support decision-makers in establishing an effective citizen participation process; and (2) a pioneering participatory planning framework aimed at systematically eliciting and integrating citizen perspectives during the early stages of OWP planning, thereby facilitating the identification of socially acceptable installation areas. To achieve these objectives, a semi-structured questionnaire survey was methodically designed using the LimeSurvey platform in conjunction with a probability sampling strategy. The collected primary data were analyzed through a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistical analysis, thematic analysis, and advanced correlation methods, all conducted within the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. In parallel, a versatile geoprocessing site-suitability model was developed within a Geographic Information System (GIS), enabling GIS-based assessments at multiple stages of the planning process (exclusion and evaluation phases). The proposed framework was applied in Greece, with the active participation of 1802 citizens, thereby demonstrating its capacity to enhance the legitimacy, inclusiveness, and social acceptability of OWP planning outcomes. Importantly, OWPs' social acceptability is shaped by aesthetic and environmental considerations, while citizens' acceptance levels and residence influence placement decisions. Sustainability criteria reveal high installation potential, positioning the South Aegean and the area east of Crete as optimal marine regions. The findings highlight planning guidelines for socially legitimate global OWP roadmaps and robust social impact assessments.

Lack of social acceptance remains a major constraint towards offshore wind project (OWP) deployment. The incorporation of local population perspectives and concerns into the site-selection process of OWPs can assist to overcome the respective barriers. In this work, an appropriately designed methodological framework is introduced for the identification of citizen perspectives on many challenging issues of site-selection of OWPs. The methodology includes three consecutive phases: (Phase 1) design of questionnaire survey and acquisition of citizen responses; (Phase 2) quantitative and qualitative analysis of citizen responses and synthesis of survey results; and (Phase 3) creation of an OWP roadmap for Greece in GIS, in accordance with the citizen perspectives and requirements. In total, 1,802 citizens participated in the survey from various geographic locations of all Regions of Greece. The survey results reveal the high social acceptability (80.6% of the participants) for OWP deployment in Greece and present the citizen requirements on the selection of eligible sites for their installation (e.g., a minimum distance of 5,000 m from shoreline has been suggested (median value)). In conclusion, the proposed participatory tool could facilitate the deployment of OWPs in Greece, by avoiding socially unsustainable sites and, thus, strongly enhancing the social acceptability of the future projects.

Solar energy is one of the leading renewable energy sources in terms of installed power capacity on a global scale. Scientific research on the site-selection procedures of solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies is of significant importance, contributing to environmentally sustainable, technically and economically viable, and socially acceptable solar energy projects. This systematic review provides direct analysis and assessment of existing site-selection procedures and addresses a gap in knowledge in the solar energy research. Among a total of 10,121 scientific studies filtered and investigated, a total of 152 scientific studies were identified as eligible and reviewed in detail. Each selected study was further investigated through 11 key thematic modules: (1) site-selection methodologies; (2) type, number, and exclusion limits of exclusion criteria; (3) type, number, importance, priority, and suitability classes of assessment criteria; (4) optimization modules and criteria; (5) studies’ geographic locations; (6) spatial planning or reference scales; (7) solar radiation data estimation and analysis; (8) sensitivity analysis related to site-selection procedure; (9) participatory planning approaches, groups, and contributions; (10) laws, regulations, and policies related to site-selection procedure; (11) suitability indexes (linguistic or/and numeric) and ranking procedures. Important insights and useful data trends are identified and highlighted in these key thematic modules of site-selection issue, enhancing future studies and globally improving siting implementations.

In the present paper, we introduce a decision-support framework to (a) classify and prioritize the municipalities of a country based on their suitability to host PV energy projects and (b) pinpoint and evaluate suitable technically and economically viable, as well as environmentally and socially sustainable, sites for PV installation in the most suitable municipalities of a country. The proposed framework is applied in Portugal. It consists of two distinctive stages: ‘Energy Roadmap for PV Deployment’ and ‘PV Site-Selection Analysis and Assessment’. In the first stage, the most and least suitable municipalities for PV deployment in Portugal are identified by analyzing important environmental and technoeconomic PV siting criteria in GIS and applying the TOPSIS method. In the second stage, an integrated PV site-selection assessment is conducted in the Portuguese municipality with the highest suitability index for PV installations. This is achieved by combining a proper GIS siting model with various multicriteria decision-making methods, such as ENTROPY, AHP and TOPSIS. The results illustrate the suitability of numerous municipalities in the country for PV deployment and verify the excellent suitability of the Municipality of Mértola for PV installations. In conclusion, a PV energy roadmap for Portugal is formulated, contributing to national energy autonomy.

In this work, an innovative sustainable spatial energy planning framework is developed on national scale for identifying and prioritizing appropriate, technically and economically feasible, environmentally sustainable as well as socially acceptable sites for the siting of large-scale onshore Wind Farms (WFs) and Photovoltaic Farms (PVFs) in Israel. The proposed holistic framework consists of distinctive steps allocated in two successive modules (the Planning and the Field Investigation module), and it covers all relevant dimensions of a sustainable siting analysis (economic, social, and environmental). It advances a collaborative and participatory planning approach by combining spatial planning tools (Geographic Information Systems (GIS)) and multi-criteria decision-making methods (e.g., Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)) with versatile participatory planning techniques in order to consider the opinion of three different participatory groups (public, experts, and renewable energy planners) within the site-selection processes. Moreover, it facilitates verification of GIS results by conducting appropriate field observations. Sites of high suitability, accepted by all participatory groups and field verified, form the final outcome of the proposed framework. The results illustrate the existence of high suitable sites for large-scale WFs' and PVFs' siting and, thus, the potential deployment of such projects towards the fulfillment of the Israeli energy targets in the near future.

Wind energy has a key role to the fulfillment of the energy and Greece’s low-carbon policy targets due to multiple benefits that it provides in terms of cost-effectiveness. However, inappropriate siting may lead to uneconomic viable projects. In this work, a site selection methodological framework is developed to determine the wind farm (WF) siting potential (onshore and offshore) of a study area, as well as the most suitable siting solutions. It consists of two successive phases: (1) the identification of suitable areas for onshore and offshore WF siting using geographic information systems by producing linear geoprocessing models of numerous exclusion criteria (e.g., wind power density) and (2) the prioritization of the suitable land and marine areas on the basis of specific assessment criteria (e.g., distance from protected areas) by deploying three different multi-criteria methodological schemes (analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and VIekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (VIKOR); entropy and VIKOR; direct weights and VIKOR). The suggested framework is applied at the regional unit of Euboea, Greece, and its final outcome is the formation of six different (land and marine) site suitability indexes. The WF siting solutions could efficiently support the local policy makers and contribute to the energy interdependency of the region.

In the present article, a new methodological framework for the efficient and sustainable exploitation of offshore wind potential was developed. The proposed integrated strategic plan was implemented for the first time at national spatial planning scale in Greece. The methodological approach is performed through geographical information systems (GIS) and Microsoft Project Server Software and includes five distinct stages: (i) definition of vision/mission, (ii) identification of appropriate areas for offshore wind farms' (OWFs) siting, (iii) determination of the OWFs' layout, (iv) calculation of the OWFs' (projects) total investment cost and, finally, (v) portfolio analysis. The final outcome of the proposed strategic planning is the prioritization of the proposed sixteen offshore wind projects based on their strategic value, as well as the estimation of the overall investment cost of the entire portfolio. High economic, socio-political and environmental benefits could be achieved through the implementation of only 60% of the total investment capital of the proposed strategic plan.

The present paper focuses on the efficient development of offshore wind farms in shallow waters in Greece. An integrated spatial energy planning approach is introduced. The proposed methodology is implemented using geographic information system and Statistical Design Institute software and applied at the national spatial planning scale. It consists of four distinct stages: (1) identifying appropriate areas to site offshore wind farms (the macro-siting configuration), (2) determining the principal technical specifications of the offshore wind turbines as well as the micro-siting configurations of offshore wind projects, (3) estimating the total investment cost of each potential offshore wind project, and (4) prioritizing the most suitable potential sites for offshore wind farms based on specific assessment criteria. The final outcomes of the proposed methodology are the development of a marine site suitability index and an assessment of the effects of different policy orientations for offshore wind farm siting on that index. Four ‘what-if’ critical scenarios are applied to test the robustness of the overall suitability index to the subjectivity of expert judgments of potential sites and thus assess the reliability of the proposed methodology. The implementation of the proposed methodology could facilitate the fulfillment of national targets for the energy sector and encourage energy interdependence among many geographic areas in Greece, since the total estimated production capacity of all the proposed offshore wind projects is expected to reach 1,185 MW.

Wind energy has a leading role in achieving a low-carbon or completely carbon-free energy sector in the near future. Scientific research on the site-selection aspects of onshore and offshore wind farms is of great importance, contributing to sustainable, technically and economically viable, and socially acceptable wind energy projects. This systematic review provides direct analysis and assessment of existing site-selection procedures and addresses a gap in knowledge in the onshore and offshore wind energy research field, identifying trends in the thematic modules of site-selection issues. Important insights and useful trends are highlighted in: (1) site-selection methodologies; (2) the type, number, and exclusion limits of exclusion criteria; (3) the type, number, importance, priority, and suitability classes of assessment criteria; (4) studies’ geographic locations; (5) spatial planning scales; (6) wind resource analysis; (7) sensitivity analysis; (8) participatory planning approaches, groups, and contributions; (9) laws, regulations, and policies related to wind farm siting; (10) suitability index classifications (i.e., linguistic and numeric); and (11) micro-siting configuration of wind turbines. Identified insights and trends could motivate the conduction of updated site-selection analyses on onshore and offshore wind energy research, addressing the determined gaps and enhancing global siting implementations.

Several researchers propose placing diagonal reinforcing bars at the base of the wall to treat the shear slip, while others have suggested various ways to address this problem associated with the halting of the effects incurred by the through-crack in the base of the wall during recycling of loading.An indicative proposal of the bibliography is using large diameter reinforcement bars in the web of the wall as vertical reinforcements, so that through the dowel action of these bars to be able to better control the shear action.The two aforementioned proposals, while adequately address the phenomenon of shear slip, present significant disadvantages: The use of diagonal reinforcement is very difficult to be constructed, because of the density of existing reinforcement in the base of the walls, which involves compromising good concrete condensation.Also, the use of large diameter vertical reinforcement along the length of the whole wall section, including its web, leads to a strongly uneconomical solution.This works examines a solution without the aforementioned side effects.Innovation of the present work is the fact that it positions stoppers in combination with the use of conventional reinforcing bars at positions of the critical zones of the walls, in order to further prevent the expected slip along the through-crack in the base of the rigidly supported wall.The work is mainly experimental and includes investigation of the seismic mechanical properties of a wall specimen with conventional reinforcement according to EC8.This study presents the investigation on the effect of the shear span as resistance parameter, on the design of concrete interfaces.In the first part of the study the shear transfer between concrete interfaces, in which the value of the shear span is equal to zero, is investigated.The experimental investigation is extended to include values of the shear span greater than zero.These values are usually observed at bridge seismic stoppers.The experimental results presented in this study are used to derive an analytical expression of the resistance of bridge seismic stoppers.

The deployment of offshore wind power technologies is becoming increasingly important towards the sustainable development of regions. In Greece, wind energy is provided at the time being, only by onshore plants and the interest in investigating the top choices for offshore wind applications in terms of environmental, economic, social and technical criteria is rapidly growing. The aim of this paper is to investigate the most appropriate sites for offshore windfarm siting in swallow waters (water depth ≤50m), where it is economically or/and technologically feasible to have structures resting directly on the seabed to support the turbine structure, taking advantage the existing knowledge as well as the technical experience of such applications. The proposed methodology includes two distinct stages (exclusion and evaluation) and integrates Geographical Information System (GIS) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method for solving spatial and policy planning problems. Thirteen exclusion criteria (e.g. wind velocity, distance from electricity grid, distance from residential network) and six assessment criteria (e.g. electricity energy production, distance from marine protected areas) are considered in the analysis. The results reveal five sites in swallow waters for offshore windfarm siting that could contribute to the energy interdependency of many areas.

Site-selection and spatial planning form a crucial step toward the successful development of Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs). Deployment of wind turbines in different water depths has raised the issue of selection of the most suitable support structures. In this work, a well-structured site-selection framework is proposed for the appropriate OWF development in Greece. The methodology includes two successive phases: (Phs.1: Siting Phase) the identification of suitable sites for OWF installation using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based on sixteen exclusion criteria (e.g., water depth and wind power density); and (Phs.2: Support Structure Suitability Phase) the determination of most appropriate and commercially available support structure(s) for each suitable site. The proposed exclusion limits are retrieved from the authors’ systematic review in offshore wind energy research and based on the maximization of environmental sustainability, and the technical and economic viability of OWFs. Twenty sustainable site solutions of either fixed (e.g., jacket) or floating (e.g., Hywind) support structures are proposed. The suggested methodology could support policy makers towards the global and national proper development of such wind energy projects.