Search results

Acute shortage of potable water and energy supplies is expected to raise in developing countries in the near future. One solid way to address these issues is to exploit renewable energy resources efficiently. Hence, this study aims to investigate wind and solar energy use in the coastal areas of southern Iran for renewable-powered seawater desalination and hydrogen production systems.

To accomplish the aforementioned purpose, five areas most prone to the problems in Iran, namely, Mahshahr, Jask and Chabahar ports and Kish and Hormoz islands were scrutinized. To ascertain the amount of wind and solar energy available in the areas, Weibull distribution function, Angstrom–Prescott equation and HOMER software were used.

The findings indicated that wind energy density in Kish was 2,014.86 (kWh/m².yr) and solar energy density in Jask equaled to 2,255.7 (kWh/m².yr) which possessed the best conditions among the areas under study. Moreover, three commercial wind turbines and three photovoltaic systems were examined for supplying energy needed by the water desalination and hydrogen production systems. The results showed that application of wind turbines with rated power of 660, 750 and 900 kWh in Kish could result in desalting 934,145, 1,263,339 and 2,000,450 (m³/yr) of seawater or producing 14,719, 20,896 and 31,521 (kg/yr) of hydrogen, respectively. Additionally, use of photovoltaic systems with efficiency of %14.4, %17.01 and %21.16 in Jask could desalinate 287, 444 and 464 (m³/yr) of seawater or generate 4.5, 7 and 7.3 (kg/yr) of hydrogen, respectively.

Compared to the huge extent of water shortage and environmental pollution, there has not been conducted enough studies to obtain broader view regarding use of renewable energies to solve these issues in Iran. Therefore, this study tries to close this gap and to give other developing nations the idea of water desalination and hydrogen production via renewable energies.

Combustion of fuel with oxidizer inside a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine forms inevitable oxides of nitrogen (NOx) due to high temperature at different locations of the combustion chamber. This study aims to quantify NOx formed inside the combustion chamber using two fuels, a conventional diesel (n-heptane) and a biodiesel (methyl oleate).

This research uses a computational fluid dynamics simulation of chemically reacting fluid flow to quantify and compare oxides of nitrogen (NOx) in a compression ignition (CI) engine. The study expends species transport model of ANSYS FLUENT. The simulation model has provided the temperature profile inside the combustion chamber, which is subsequently used to calculate NOx using the NOx model. The simulation uses a single component hydrocarbon and oxygenated hydrocarbon to represent fuels; for instance, it uses n-heptane (C₇H₁₆) for diesel and methyl-oleate (C₁₉H₃₆O₂) for biodiesel. A stoichiometric air–fuel mixture is used for both fuels. The simulation runs a single cylinder CI engine of 650 cm³ swept volume with inlet and exhaust valves closed.

The pattern for variation of velocity, an important flow parameter, which affects combustion and subsequently oxides of nitrogen (NOx) formation at different piston locations, is similar for the two fuels. The variations of in-cylinder temperature and NOx formation with crank angles have similar patterns for the fuels, diesel and biodiesel. However, the numerical values of in-cylinder temperature and mass fraction of NOx are different. The volume averaged static peak temperatures are 1,013 K in case of diesel and 1,121 K in case of biodiesel, while the mass averaged mass fractions of NOx are 15 ppm for diesel and 141 ppm for biodiesel. The temperature rise after combustion is more in case of biodiesel, which augments the oxides of nitrogen formation. A new parameter, relative mass fraction of NOx, yields 28% lower value for biodiesel than for diesel.

This work uses a new concept of simulating simple chemical reacting system model to quantify oxides of NOx using single component fuels. Simplification has captured required fluid flow data to analyse NOx emission from CI engine while reducing computational time and expensive experimental tests.

This paper aims to investigate the techno-economic feasibility of wind power potential for a tribal region located in Gachsaran in the South-West of Iran.

Techno-economic feasibility study and analysis of data were conducted by HOMER v2.68 software. Simulations and calculations were performed for 10 kW turbines, 8 Trojan L16P batteries, 12 kW converter and 12 kW generator. To anticipate the pay back period (PBP) or the time required to reach profitability, an engineering economic method named net equivalent uniform annual was applied.

The power plant construction cost, including the initial cost, installing, replacing and project operating costs for useful life of 20 years was equal to $40970. The net income of the project for each year was $8538 and the calculations were carried out using interest rate of 18%. Results indicated that PBP was 13 years which is lower than 20 years useful life of the turbine. Therefore, it is economically feasible to use this type of turbine for the nominated region.

There has not been conducted a research regarding remote areas in Iran; therefore, this study aims at closing this research gap. Moreover, this method could be used for any remote areas in any other developing country.

Every day, the sun provides by far more energy than the amount necessary to meet the whole world’s energy demand. Solar energy, unlike fossil fuels, does not suffer from depleting resource and also releases no greenhouse gas emissions when being used. Hence, using solar irradiance to produce electricity via photovoltaic (PV) systems has significant benefits which can lead to a sustainable and clean future. In this regard, the purpose of this study is first to assess the technical and economic viability of solar power generation sites in the capitals of the states of Canada. Then, a novel integrated technique is developed to prioritize all the alternatives.

In this study, ten provinces in Canada are evaluated for the construction of solar power plants. The new hybrid approach composed of data envelopment analysis (DEA), balanced scorecard (BSC) and game theory (GT) is implemented to rank the nominated locations from techno-economic-environmental efficiency aspects. The input data are obtained using HOMER software.

Applying the proposed hybrid approach, the order of high to low efficiency locations was found as Winnipeg, Victoria, Edmonton, Quebec, Halifax, St John’s, Ottawa, Regina, Charlottetown and Toronto. Construction of ten solar plants in the ten studied locations was assessed and it was ascertained that usage of solar energy in Winnipeg, Victoria and Edmonton would be economically and environmentally justified.

As to novelty, it should be clarified that the authors propose an effective hybrid method combining DEA, BSC and GT for prioritizing all available scenarios concerned with the construction of a solar power plant.