A comprehensive insight into tidal stream energy farms in Iran

摘要

Rapid global growth in consumption of limited fossil fuels parallel to global population growth and environmental concerns on sustainability of the current energy resources, led engineers and scientists into the search for alternative resources of energy. The goal of this search is to meet human energy needs, while mitigate the potential drastic effects of fossil fuels consumption. Tidal energy, due to its high level of consistency and predictability, is one of the feasible and promising type of renewable energy for future development and investment. The goal of this study is to present a comprehensive insight into development of tidal stream energy farms in Iran. In the current work based on numerical simulations three potential tidal sites have been identified in Persian Gulf and Oman Sea: Khowran Strait, Hengam Island and Greater-Tunb Island. Then, according to thirteen specified attributes, technical evaluation of three above mentioned sites has been performed. According to these evaluations Hengam and Greater-Tunb Islands showed more potentials for implementation of a commercial scale tidal turbine farm. Further analyses proved that Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) for Hengam and Greater-Tunb Islands is 182.25 and 221.51 GBP/MWh respectively. With these LCOE values and current Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff (REFiT) rate in Iran, it is expected that the return of investment period in Hengam and Greater-Tunb Islands to be 18.77 and 23.79 years respectively. These values dictate that current REFIT rates have to be increased to attract private sector for investment in this field and to make tidal current energy more competitive among other types of energies.