Investigation of the Optimal Model for the Development of Renewable Energy in Iran using a Robust Optimization Approach

Abstract

Due to its geographical location, Iran has numerous capacities in renewable energy, and this issue has made the need to develop renewable energy on the authorities' agenda. This underscores the need to provide an optimal model for developing renewable energy. Therefore, in this study, the main purpose was to provide an optimal renewable energy model. In line with this goal, by choosing the cost function as the objective function and considering the potential constraints of renewable energy (resource constraints), the amount of electricity consumption in each of the 16 electricity regions (demand constraint) and the limitation of renewable energy production coefficient (Technical constraints), the optimal model of renewable energy use was designed and solved using a solid programming model in LINGO software. The optimal model results show 15.19% small hydropower, 24.30% wind energy, 5.52% biomass energy, 6.13% is geothermal energy, 4.79% is tidal energy, and 44.07% solar energy. The optimum portfolio of renewable energy is estimated in this paper using the robust optimization approach. The results showed which renewable technology has the greater potential to take more share of the energy portfolio. The results of this investigation help policymakers to choose the most suitable renewable technologies to support.