Economic and environmental assessment of solar-wind-biomass hybrid renewable energy system supplying rural settlement load

摘要

Hybrid renewable energy systems are becoming a popular option for rural electrification due to environmental impacts caused by fossil fuels like coal and oil. Iran is a developing country with many renewable energy sources, but most Iranian power plants use non-renewable resources to generate electricity. This study aims to present a hybrid renewable energy system consisting of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, and biogas generator for rural electrification in Fars province, Iran. The utilization of this off-grid system prevents the development of fossil fuel power plants and CO2 emissions. The optimization problem is solved using the HOMER Pro software, and sensitivity analyses obtain optimal system configurations on input biomass rate, biomass price, and inflation rate parameters. The inflation rate and biomass price are directly related to the cost of electricity (COE). The results show that the COE in optimal systems ranges from 0.128 to $0.223/kW h. Increasing the biomass price from 20 to $60/ton reduces the biogas generator's power generation by at least 86%. The most optimal economic system involves a biogas generator (150 kW), photovoltaic panels (80.7 kW), batteries, and converter. The environmental assessment indicates that CO2 emissions from proposed hybrid renewable energy systems are negligible compared to a coal-based power plant and the grid. Reducing CO2 in the presented approach can save more than $8000 a year.