Technical and financial evaluation of hybrid systems in order to protect Oil and Gas pipelines

Environmental pollution produced by different power plants and social costs caused by that and also decreasing trend of fossil resources has led to increase the tendency to use renewable energies and hybrid systems. Due to inaccessibility of remote areas to electric energy and high electrification costs, delivering power to these areas by systems separate from the network is highly regarded. Hybrid systems which are useful for cathodic protection of oil and gas pipelines of Iran Oil Company, are efficient and economical systems in terms of maintenance and no need of high-voltage electrical installations and electricity transmission costs. The aim of this study is to evaluate the technical and economic use of hybrid systems for cathodic protection of oil and gas pipelines in Khuzestan province, which is located in southwestern Iran. In this study the economic feasibility of power generation and building a hybrid power plant using wind turbines and solar arrays with storage systems and comparing it with the costs of constructing and electrifying to those areas by power grids in three regions that oil and gas pipelines are passing through, will be discussed. All analysis is done by Homer program and the results show that only construction of a hybrid power plant in region number 3, with average annual energy production of 166.299 kWh/year and energy production cost of 1.933 dollars per kW is economical and construction of hybrid power plants in other regions will only be extra costs for Oil Company and electrifying these regions by power network grids, is more economical.