Ranking locations for producing hydrogen using geothermal energy in Afghanistan

Abstract

Geothermal energy is a type of renewable energy with high availability and independence from climatic and atmospheric conditions. It has been shown that geothermal energy is technically, economically and environmentally more suitable for hydrogen production than other renewable sources. Hydrogen has wide applications in many fields including cooling, oil, gas, petrochemical, nuclear, and energy industries. Afghanistan has significant potential in geothermal power generation and also several hydrogen-consuming industries that provide opportunities for geothermal-based hydrogen production. This study attempted to find suitable locations for the construction of geothermal power plant for hydrogen production in Afghanistan. Given the multitude of criteria involved in the choice of location, evaluations and comparisons were performed using multi-criteria decision-making methods. Nine criteria were used to evaluate 17 Afghanistan provinces in terms of suitability for geothermal-based hydrogen production. The SWARA (Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) method was used to weight the criteria and then the ARAS (Additive Ratio Assessment) method was used to rank the provinces. The results were validated. The results showed that Sari pul, Balkh and Herat are the most suitable Afghanistan provinces and Zabul, Ghor and Kandahar are the least suitable Afghanistan provinces for geothermal-based hydrogen production. The three methods produced almost identical rankings with only minor differences in the overall ranking of some provinces.