Techno – economic evaluation of the reduction of water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by applying renewable energy resources for electricity generation – a case study: Besat steam power plant

The main target of this investigation is to propose an alternative renewable hybrid system with Besat steam power plant. Since water shortage and greenhouse gas emissions are one of the most important environmental concerns, Fossil fuel power plants have a high amount of water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. First, the Besat steam power plant is introduced, and types of the costs including water cost, and external cost of carbon dioxide, which are associated with this power plant, are calculated. In continue, by applying HOMER software and solar and wind atlases of Iran, several hybrid energy systems which can provide the generated power of Besat power plant, are proposed. Amongst the proposed systems, the hybrid wind/PV/battery/hydropower is selected as the most optimum configuration. The results illustrate by utilizing this hybrid system, the water consumption and CO2 emissions reduce with the values of 4429 m3 and 1.43 million tons, respectively. Based on the economic analysis, the external cost of CO2 emissions decreases by 35375043$. Also, this hybrid system has a cost of energy of 0.0815$, and net present cost of 5.673 million $.