Flexible hybrid renewable energy system design for a typical remote city in Iraq: A case study

Identifying and harnessing energy sources that offer sustainability and reliability have been and continue to be constant challenges in the search for renewable energy (RE) resources. Many remote areas of Iraq have grown in recent years; however, nothing has been done to upgrade the power-producing facilities and distribution networks, because updating the system is highly expensive and beyond the capability of a remote area. This study investigates the power needs of Al-Faw, Iraq, a city in the South Iraq and close to the Kuwait border. The challenge of AL-Faw is that electricity supply comprises 75% of the total energy load. This study provides a detailed overview of techno-economic evaluations for proposed system. The system’s components are a Grid, PV panels, wind turbines WT, converters, and batteries BT integrated according to compatibility with three different scenarios for power generation. The PV–WT–Grid has the lowest COE and NPC values among all studied cases with 59.1% RE penetration, and its ability to operate under varying conditions that could affect the system at any time during the duration of the project’s lifetime, thereby making it the most effective design for Al-Faw. The results showed that the NPV, NWT, NBT, Nconv, COE, NPC, Operating cost, and IC are 191, 3,650, 1,061, 152, 0.0381 US$/KWh, US$ 78.8 million, 1.37 million US$/year, and US$ 62.9 million respectively.