Technical, Economical, and Environmental Feasibility of Hybrid Renewable Electrification Systems for off-Grid Remote Rural Electrification Areas for East Azerbaijan Province, Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, global warming, air pollution emissions, climate change, and fuel price growth are chronic challenges on a global scale for residential sectors. To overcome this, renewable energy systems would certainly be a potential alternative. Expanding electricity to remote rural areas with no access to grid electricity is a significant concern in the Middle East countries such as northern west of Iran. Off-grid hybrid renewable energy systems (RES) can be an ideal solution for remote rural areas no access is available to grid electricity. This research investigates the application of wind turbine, PV panels, and diesel generator in a hybrid renewable energy system for six off-grid remote villages, with separate locations and various climate statues, for East Azerbaijan province, Iran. Hybrid renewable energy system applies optimal size of several environmentally-friendly sources via HOMER software. In this study, for offering suitable configuration, all possible configurations of the renewable energy system were formulated for each village. These communities were chosen based upon Iran’s Sixth Five-Year Economic and Renewable Energy Development Plan (2017–22). Wind speed and solar radiation data were extracted from Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy Dataset of NASA. For achieving accurate data on wind speed and solar radiation, as well as population for each community, they were extracted from Iran’s Atlas and National Department of Statistics respectively. In order to explore the most cost-effective and efficient design for each community, various models of wind turbine, PV panels, and diesel generator were designed and optimized. In this study, most important economic indicators including initial capital ($), operating cost ($/yr), total NPC ($), and cost of energy ($/kwh) were taken into account. For conducting economic and environmental sustainability, HOMER software was applied. For economic modelling and geographical position, Visio and Arc GIs software were used respectively.