feasibility study of a photovoltaic

7/28/2019 Feasibility Study of a Photovoltaic

1/5

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH

Farhadi, et al., Vol. 1, Issue. 3, pp. 179- 183, 2012

179

AbstractDue to the fossil fuel resources decline and

ever increasing attentions to climate change and

environmental issues, many countries are seeking renewable

energy sources to meet electricity demand in future.

Photovoltaic systems are widely using for standalone or grid

supply. In this paper, feasibility of photovoltaic system

implementing and operation in Parsabad Moghan City, as oneof the main scattered agricultural regions in northwest of Iran

is evaluated. Since this city has the great potential to use

solar energies, and also by the elimination of subsides from

electricity cost (in 2011) resulting in remarkable increase in

electricity cost it can be good idea to produce electricity by

own and less rely on grid power. Practical results show that

photovoltaic systems can be implemented in Parsabad

Moghan City beneficially if utilized in large mass.

Index TermsCost reduction, Local climate, Photovoltaic

system, Parsabad Moghan City.

I. INTRODUCTIONDue to the fossil fuel resources decline and their great

share in environmental pollution and issues, many

countries and researchers are looking for green energy

resources based on each regions potentials. So far many

kind of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind,

geothermal and others are utilized for power

generation. In general, to meet electricity demand and

to cope with environmental problems using green

energies there are two steps: first, finding renewable

energy resources in a special region, second, to utilize

these energy resources economically and efficiently [1].Photovoltaic (PV) energy generating systems (or PV

systems) convert the suns energy directly into electricity

using state-of-the-art semiconductor materials. PV

systems vary in complexity. Some are called stand-

alone or off-grid systems, which mean they are the

sole source of power to a home, water pump or other

Manuscript Received June 10, 2012; Revised June 28, 2012; Accepted

June 30, 2012.

load. The city of Parsabad Moghan as the hottest city in

Ardabil province located in northwest of Iran has a

distinguished climate in Ardabil province as the coldest

province in Iran, because usually there is a minimum 10

centigrades degree difference between Parsabad

Moghan city and Ardabil city. Parsabad Moghan has a

great potential to benefit solar energy to produce

electricity such that there is an average solar radiation of

4kWh/m2

and the average 2500 h solar radiation in a

year. For the aforementioned reasons, we tried to

evaluate the capability of the city to enjoy renewable

energy resources to use in large farms and gardens for

which this city is thriving [2-5]. Parsabad Moghan is

famous for its distinguishing agricultural potentials.

Since farms need to huge amount of power for pumping,

irrigation, ventilation and other applications, it would be

useful to enjoy solar energy to produce total or at least a

fraction of utilization electric power.

Rest of the paper is organized as follows: in Section II,

photovoltaic system applications are included. Then,

climate data related to Parsabad Moghan city and its

analysis are reported in Section III. Section IV describes

obtained technical and economical results of study, and

implementation of a typical PV system was analyzed on

a sample home. After that, economical and feasibility

analysis of PV systems are summarized. Finally, in

Section V, a brief conclusion is included.

II. PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM APPLICATIONSGenerally, photovoltaic system applications are

divided into three groups: grid-connected applications,

off-grid applications and back-up applications [6]. Design

of grid-connected applications is such that the system is

working while it is connected to the power grid. There is

a bilateral connection between PV system and power

grid. If the generated power by PV is more than

consumer demand, the excessive power is injected into

Feasibility Study of a Photovoltaic Power Station in the Parsabad

Moghan City, Iran

Payam Farhadi*, Mohammad Karimi, Bahman Moradi and Mahmood Hosseini

Department of Electrical Engineering, Parsabad Moghan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Parsabad Moghan,

Iran

*Corresponding Author:[email protected]


2/5



180

the power grid. In contrast, during night or periods in

which PV system could not meet the consumers

demand, power grid helps PV systems butteries, if any,

to supply consumers. For off-grid or stand-alone

systems, a bank of battery should be integrated on

system to supply power in lack of solar radiations [7].

For Parsabad Moghan city case, either grid connected or

off-grid photovoltaic systems can be utilized. Schematic

diagrams for these systems are depicted in Figure. 1.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of (a) stand-alone photovoltaic system,

(b) grid-connected photovoltaic system.

If an autonomous system is required, the PV system

must provide sufficient electricity to supply the loads

even under the worst conditions. The system sizing is

usually carried out for the month that represents the

worst conditions in terms of the combination of high

load-levels and low sunlight conditions. For such PV

system, the average daily electrical output should matchor exceed the average daily load. If this is not the case,

then the PV array size must be increased.

For a grid connected system, it is not usually necessary

to meet a particular load but usually to contribute to the

general electricity supply. The system sizing is therefore

not often governed by the size of the load, but by other

constraints such as area available for the system and the

budget available for its purchase and installation.

III. LOCATION INFORMATION FOR PARSABAD MOGHAN CITYThe first step in this paper was to gather the relevant

information on the location and purpose of the systemsuch as latitude and longitude, weather data (monthly

average sunlight levels, ambient and maximum

temperatures, rainfall, maximum wind speeds, other

extreme weather conditions), constraints on system

installation (tilt angle, orientation, risk of shading),

nature of load(s), likely load profile (daily, annual

variation), request reliability and likelihood of increase

of demand.

To design and evaluate solar energy utilization for

electric power generation, the weather information of

site is of great importance for planning andimplementing PV systems. The efficiency of photovoltaic

panels is depending on the weather condition,

placement and orientation. A typical solar panel can

produce 5 times and 3 times of rated electric power in

summer and winter, respectively. The number of cloudy

days, wind blow and its speed to determine the strength

of steel structure, amount of rains, and the height of

snow to determine the height of PV panels from the

earth surface, the amount of humidity and many other

factors should be taken to the account in designing and

implementation of PV systems. The other significantfactor is the angle of PV panels. Orientation for PV

systems is an important issue. By appropriate

orientation, one can get 70% of maximum power. If the

installing place is on north hemisphere solar arrays

should be oriented to the south and vice versa.

Data acquired from Parsabad Moghan weather station

give us the following information: Latitude 39.65,

Longitude: 47.91 and Altitude: 32. The optimum array

orientation will depend on the latitude of the site. It is

generally accepted that, for low latitudes, the maximum

annual output is obtained when array tilt angle isroughly equal to the latitude angle and the array faces

due south (in the northern hemisphere). To get the

annual maximum power and minimum maintenance,

solar arrays in Parsabad Moghan should be orientated to

the south.

Although, panels angle are not changed monthly (for

better performance it should be changed monthly),

however we could use the angle amounts calculated for


3/5



181

Irans provinces in [6]. The monthly average sun

radiation per hour for Parsabad Moghan is given in Table

I. According to the table, the average sun radiation is

more than 8 hours per a day; however the radiations can

be 11 hours in summer. It is worth to note that because

Parsabad Moghan city is popular for agricultural lands

around the country also as a city with having hot

weather even in the winter, its total electric energy

usage for cooling and agricultural purposes such as

pumping and other are much more, and it could be very

helpful that we do not only rely on electric power

supplied by grid power and produce a fracture of

utilization electric power. For better understanding,

Table I is illustrated in Figure 2. The average energy

received in a day per square meter is given in Table II.

TABLE I. MONTHLY AVERAHGE SUN RADIATION PER HOUR IN PARSABADMOGHAN CITY [4]

Month The monthly average sun radiation (h)

January 5.6

February 6.5

March 7

April 7.2

May 8.5

June 11

July 10.9

August 11

September 8.5

October 7.8

November 6.7

December 5.9

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Janu

ary

Febr

uary

March Ap

rilM

ayJu

ne July

August

Septembe

r

Octobe

r

Novembe

r

Decembe

r

Month

Time(h)

Figure 2. The monthly average sun radiation per hour for Parsabad

Moghan.

TABLE II. AVERAHGE ENERGY RECEIVED IN A DAY PER M2[4]

Month Received Energy (kWh/m2/day)

January 4.40

February 5.20

March 5.35

April 5.40

May 5.60

June 6.20

July 6.25

August 5.30

September 5.20

October 5.05

November 4.20

December 4.35

IV. TECHNICAL AND ECONOMICAL ANALYSIS OF A TYPICALPV SYSTEMS IN PARSABAD MOGHAN CITY

The average electric power utilization by a house in

Parsabad Moghan city is 300kWh per month. Due to the

new electric power tariffs imposed after government

subside elimination; each house should pay 225000 Rials

(or 18 dollars) for the monthly bill. Now if we want to

supply this 300kWh using PV systems the following

actions should be done. To calculate the rated cost of a

simple PV system, one of the parameters should beconsidered is the effective life time of each component

operating under certain condition. Also, during this life

time we should calculate how the time is allotted for

maintenance, therefore maintenance cost and

component replacements are considered. Table III

shows the lifetime of components used in PV system. If

the PV system needs to supply AC loads, then an inverter

must be included to convert the DC output of the PV

array to the AC output required by the load. As with PV

systems, inverters can be broadly divided into two types,

including: standalone and grid-connected. For many PVsystem applications, particularly stand-alone, electrical

power is required from system during hours of darkness

or period of poor weather. In this case storage must be

added to the system. Typically, this is in the form of a

battery bank of an appropriate size to meet the demand

when the PV array is unable to provide sufficient power.


4/5



182

TABLE III. MONTHLY AVERAHGE SUN RADIATION PER HOUR IN PARSABADMOGHAN CITY [4]

Device Maintenance period Life time (yr)

Solar

cell

Inspection on connections

and cells breakdown

10 to 15 (conventional)

20 (advance)

Panel 6 months 20 to 25

Acid

Battery4 months 15

Inverter - 20

Now consider a house with 300kWh utilization, i.e. 10

kWh per day. We need the sun radiation in 1 hour on a

10kWPV system or 8 hour radiation on a 1.25kW PV

system. This means that the more is the sun radiation (in

hour), the less is the PV size (in kW).

Since the average sun radiation in Parsabad Moghan

city is more than 8 hours per day, we can figure out thesize of PV systems. However, it is possible that there is

not continuous sun radiation during this average 8

hours, hence to increase the reliability we consider 8

hours not more, in addition a battery bank is considered

to be used at night. The used PV characteristic is given in

Table IV.

TABLE IV. PV SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

UN-E-235(EI) Rated values

Rated Power 0.235 kW

Current at maximum power 7.84 A

Voltage at maximum power 30 V

Short circuit current 8.6 A

Open circuit voltage 37 V

Dimensions 46*994*1652 (1.64 m2)

Weight 20kg

Cost 520 $

According to the abovementioned devices and related

points and cost, the final cost for 300 kWh utilization by

PV system is 40000000 Rials (or 3200$). However, thiscost can be declined using low cost devices.

Now, to estimate the time for investment return using

this PV system and by considering that each year there is

a 15% increase in electricity tariffs, we have,

Total cost of PV system=40000000 Rials (or 3200 $)

Monthly cost of electricity=225000 Rials (or 18 $)

Annual cost of electricity=225000 Rials (or 216 $)

Now, by considering 15% increase, it is expected that,

after 9 years the invested cost (3200$) will be returned

to us and after that all power production is completely

free for us. It is important to note that using PV systems

individually is not so much lucrative; however by group

PVs we can enjoy green and less expensive electricity.

Finally, authors believe that by ever decreasing PV

systems cost and money making of these systems, more

attentions will be allotted to this systems in Parsabad

Moghan city. Also, using these PVs for agricultural and

cooling reasons can be really a good choice.

V. CONCLUSIONDue to the inexhaustible nature of solar energy in

world, many attentions have been paid to the green

energy resources. PV cells have social and commercialvalue only when they are used in a system to provide a

service. In this paper, feasibility of PV systems for

individual utilization in Parsabad Moghan city was

studied technically and economically. It was obtained

that due to the geotropic situation and good sun

radiations in this region we can use PV systems to

generate the electric power. Also, it was obtained that

using this system can be lucrative, and the capital cost

will be returned to us about 9 years later. Finally,

authors believe that by more advancement in PV

systems and ever decreasing in PV systems device costs,more attentions and utilization will be paid to PVs in

Parsabad Moghan City in future.

REFERENCES

[1] Birzhandi M., Sarjoei A. and Shams Solary E., Feasibilityand Economic Justification of Photovoltaic System in

Esfahan. Proc. 17th

Electric Power Distribution Conf

erence, EPDC 2012, Tehran, Iran 2012.

[2] M. Sojoudi, R. Madatov, T. Sojoudi and P. Farhadi. AchievingSteady and Stable Energy from AlGaAsGaAs Solar Cells. ETASR -

Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research Vol.

1, N. 6, p.p. 151-154, 2011.

[3] Brian N. Farhi, James P. Dunlop, PE. Photovoltaics & DistributedGeneration ; www.fsec.ucf.edu;2002.

[4] Data of Weather bureau of Parsabad Moghan City in2011, Parsabad Moghan, Iran, 2011.

[5] Mohammad Sadegh Zabihi M., Sarjoei Evaluation ofoptimum technical and economical condition of

Photovoltaic System in Architecture. Proc. 1st

Optimization of fuel consumption in Iran , Tehran, Iran,

2002.

[6] Ali Akbar Golkar M. and Modarresi J. Determining theoptimum angle of solar panels to reach the maximum


5/5



183

radiation on distribution networks in Irans cities. Proc.

17th

Electric Power Distribution Conference, EPDC 2012,

Tehran, Iran 2012.

[7] Salem Nia A. and Talebi S. M. Feasibility of Supplying aHouse with Zero Energy in Sahara (case study TAbas City

in Iran). Proc. 17th

Electric Power Distribution

Conference, EPDC 2012, Tehran, Iran 2012.

Payam Farhadi was born in 1985. He received the B.Sc. and M.S.c degrees in

Electrical Engineering with major in Power Electric from the IAU, Ardabil and

Ahar branch in 2009 and 2011, respectively. He is a faculty member in

electrical engineering department at the Parsabad Moghan Branch-IAU. Also

he is an elite member of Young Researchers Club in Iran. Mr. Farhadi has

published more than 40 papers in journals and conference proceedings. His

research interests include distributed generation, distribution system

planning and optimization and renewable energies.

Mohammad Karimi was born in 1983. He received the B.Sc. and M.S.c

degrees in Electrical Engineering with major in Power Electric from the IAU,

Ardabil and Ahar branch in 2009 and 2011, respectively. He is working as an

instructor at Parsabad Moghan Branch-IAU. Mr. Karimi is mainly working on

distributed generation, distribution system planning and optimization and

renewable energies.

Bahman Moradi was born in 1989. He is pursuing his B.Sc. degree in

Electrical Engineering with major in Power Electric from the IAU, Parsabad

Moghan. His researches interests include are renewable energies especiallysolar and wind energies.

Mahmood Hosseini was born in 1979. He received the B.Sc. , M.S.c and Phd

degrees in Physical Geography in 2001, 2004 and 2012, respectively. He is

working as an Assistant Professor at Parsabad Moghan Branch-IAU.

Mr. Hosseini is mainly working on geomorphology, hydrology and Climate

changes.

feasibility study of a photovoltaic

Documents