Electrification of a Tourist Village Using Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems, Sarakhiyeh in Iran

Abstract

Tourism paves the way for employment and income development in many countries. In southern provinces of Iran, especially Khuzestan, however, despite their high potential, tourism is only restricted to Nowruz (New Year) and there is no appropriate conditions for tourism. The development of suitable tourist infrastructures and construction of recreational places can terminate the Nowruz monopoly of tourism to witness the extensive presence of visitors at all times of the year. According to the above notes and in line with the construction of a tourist settlement in Sarakhiyeh village and noting that different scenarios of hybrid renewable energies have not been used to electrification of a tourist village in Iran so far, this paper uses HOMER to study the electrification of this village using renewable energies wind, solar, biomass, and fuel cell. The studied parameters are net present cost (NPC), cost of energy (COE), the surplus electricity produced and the emissions produced during the year. Results indicated that in the most cost-effective, which was related to the biomass/solar cell scenario with a price/kWh of $ 0.339, 49% of energy requirement was provided by solar cells which seemed reasonable given the high radiation potential of Khuzestan province. The result of this study can accelerate the development of Khuzestan and other southern provinces of Iran with similar climate conditions.