Feasibility study and optimal reliable design of renewable hybrid energy system for rural electrification in Iran

A hybrid hydro/wind/photovoltaic base on hydrogen storage system is designed to supply power demand. The aim of this design is minimization of net present cost of the hybrid system.Optimization problem is subject to reliable supply of the demand. The system is investigated in the north west of Iran(Meshkinshahr) and the local data is applied. About 12 villages (corresponding to 680 people) are found in the upper Blue Qarahsou river gorge and far remote areas, which makes the taskof their electrification via grid system very difficult. The hydro potentials are analyzed with the help of GIS data of Iran.Meteorological data from renewable energy organization (SUNA) of Iran and other sources, such as NASA, is used for theestimation of solar and wind energy potentials. In this paper, hydro/PV/wind/ fuel cell hybrid system is compared with abovesystem without hydro unit. An advanced variation of honey bee mating optimization algorithm (HBMO) is used to solve the optimization problem. Result reveals the impact of componentsoutages on the reliability and cost of the system, so they are directly dependent on component’s reliabilities, i.e. Outages resultin need for a larger generating system for supplying the load with the acceptable reliability. Different system types and their component sizes are identified having a cost of energy less than 0.3 $/KWh.