Spatial multi-criteria decision-making for onshore wind farm site selection in Brazil

Wind energy can reduce reliance on fossil fuels, but identifying suitable sites requires balancing techno-economic feasibility with environmental and social constraints. Brazil has outstanding wind resources, yet environmental, social and land-use conflicts can limit deployment. Here, we develop a national-scale GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making framework for onshore wind farm site selection in Brazil, integrating 14 exclusion constraints and six evaluation criteria derived from the literature and national datasets. Criterion weights were elicited from Brazilian experts using the analytic hierarchy process. Under the Wind Power Expansion (WPE) scenario, 1.67 million km² (approximately 20% of Brazil) was classified as suitable, corresponding to a theoretical capacity of 15,812 GW. Under the more restrictive High Economic Reward (HER) scenario, 14,268 km² remained suitable across the mapped suitability classes. Suitable areas concentrate along the eastern coast and in the southern region. At 100 m spatial resolution, the resulting municipality-level rankings can support strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and the sustainable expansion of onshore wind energy in Brazil.