Feasibility Study of Using Photovoltaic Systems in Water and Wastewater Industry (Case Study: Tehran Water and Wastewater Company)

Since water and wastewater companies are one of the significant energy consumers in urban industries, there is a substantial share to increase electricity demand and as a result, increasing the power plants load. The purpose of this study is to present a new evaluation approach for using solar energy in the water and wastewater industry. Therefore, while consideration of the energy consumption in the six regions of Tehran Water and Wastewater Company, requirements for the installation and operation of photovoltaic systems in this company has been investigated. In the present study, the objective functions are energy consumption costs and greenhouse gas emissions; Also, solar energy potential, increasing population rate and water consumption are the most important independent variables and forecasted electricity consumption, carbon tax, and electricity sales price are also dependent variables. The results of this study, which can be based on using the regression model, show that the increase in electricity consumption and costs are 1.5 and 3 times in this period, respectively. To calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, the three scenarios are implemented and compared with the replacement of 5, 20, and 30% of the company required electricity by photovoltaic systems. The reduction in CO2 emissions due to the production of 30% of electricity consumption with solar energy, amounted to 26,712 thousand tons. On the other hand, taxing more than $ 10 per ton of CO2 emissions changes the consumption pattern and reduces the cost of electricity consumption in this industry by $ 5,987,086.