Technical, economical and environmental feasibility study of a photovoltaic system under the climatic condition of north Iraq

Abstract

The energy, economical and environmental performances of the 1 MWp photovoltaic power plant have been numerically investigated under the climatic condition of Zakho city/Iraq using reality metrological measurements. The results of the PV system have been compared with those of other available power plants that used fossil fuels under identical power values. The findings displayed that the investment in PV technology is very feasible in Zakho city compared to other power plants. The economic results displayed that the payback time is nearly 7 years to recover the primary expense of the plant and the payback energy time is 2 years to recover the embedded energy of PV panels. The cost of a PV plant is nearly 10 times less than that of the other fossil fuel power plants. The employment of the PV plant leads to reduce CO₂ emissions between 600 and 2000 tCO₂. Finally, the results illustrated that the use of the PV system in Zakho city is feasible technically, economically and environmentally.

KEYWORDS:

• Photovoltaic
• economic
• Iraq climatic conditions
• energy
• environmental

Acknowledgements

The authors would humbly like to express our appreciation to the University of Zakho for their laboratory support for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).