Finding the Minimum Distance from the National Electricity Grid for the Cost-Effective Use of Diesel Generator-Based Hybrid Renewable Systems in Iran

Abstract

The electricity economy and its excessive consumption have become one of the main concerns of the Iranian government for many years. This issue, along with recent droughts, shows the need to use renewable energy that is free and clean and does not require water. In addition, due to the high cost of cable-laying and maintenance of power lines, it is not at all an option at all distances over the development of the national electricity grid. Therefore, it is important to find a distance for farther distances so that the use of renewable energy systems can be superior to the national electricity grid. According to related studies conducted so far, nothing has been done in this regard in Iran untill private-sector investors realize that, for what distances from the national grid, the network development is not cost-effective compared to using renewables. Therefore, in the present work, by using NASA's wind and solar data, 102 stations in Iran were investigated using the HOMER software. The studied system is a solar-wind one backed up by batteries and diesel generator for emergency conditions. The results showed that the average total net present cost of the solar-wind hybrid system in Iran was to provide a daily average electricity load of 5.9 kWh of a residential building with a peak load of 806 W equal to $ 12415, which could on average provide 95.3% of the building's needs by renewable energy. The average minimum distance from the national grid is 593 m for the cost-effective use of renewable energy.