Evaluation of climate change and prediction of its impacts on efficiency and fuel consumption of thermal power plants in Iran in next decade

Several studies yet have been conducted in the field of climate change in different parts of the world in order to investigate the impact of meteorological parameters changes on the performance of energy sector. In this study, the effect of climate change on the performance of energy generation sector at Iran power plants in next decade has been investigated using the results of climate change calculations in the country’s provinces obtained by downscaling through neural network. Calculations show that the efficiency of gas power plants averagely decreases by 0.6% per 1 oC temperature increase. Similarly, the efficiency of steam and combined cycle power plants averagely decreases by 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. Considering the climate change consequences in Iran, the overall temperature will averagely increase about 1.36 oC by the year 2025. Conduction a close investigation, the average temperature rise affecting the performance of power plants in the country - which would cause a drop in energy generation sector efficiency - was evaluated to be 1.13 oC. After making calculations and utilizing energy and environment software, it was found that the thermal power plants’ fuel consumption will increase about 2.49%. The results revealed that the amount of carbon dioxide emission and social costs caused by emissions will increase by about 1.3% and 2%, respectively.