Feasibility of supplying electrical energy demands with off-grid hybrid renewable systems to supply a small hotel in the desert

Abstract

Considering the world’s ever-increasing need for energy, as well as the limited resources, pollution, and climate change caused by fossil fuels, it shows the necessity of using renewable energies more than ever. Iran has many tourist attractions. It is difficult to supply energy to welfare places in some of these areas due to the long distance from the city or the vulnerable environment, so their energy supply system is designed independently of the grid. Using a diesel generator to supply electricity can be considered the first solution for a hotel’s off-grid system, but this scenario has high costs and causes pollution. The second way is to use renewable energies such as wind and solar, but these energies are not stable due to weather conditions. One suggestion to overcome the periodicity of renewable energy sources such as the sun and wind is to develop a hybrid energy system in which excess electrical energy can be converted and stored. These resources, together with energy storage, can provide a system with better reliability that is suitable for off-grid applications. In the third case, the diesel generator can be combined with renewable energy. In this article, the electricity supply is for a small hotel with an area of 3995 m2 located in the Varzaneh desert of Isfahan province. The average electrical load required is 1530 kWh/day, and the peak load is 118.76 kW. The simulation of the system has been done with HOMER software, and the results have been categorized based on the three scenarios mentioned as well as the total net present cost of the system. With the obtained results, it is clear that the most optimal system is one with a combined supplier of a diesel generator, a photovoltaic panel, a wind turbine, and battery storage. The NPC value of this system is $1,995,016; the renewable rate is 87.1%; and its emissions are 84% lower than in the case where only the diesel generator supplier has them.