Assessment of solar and wind energy potentials for three free economic and industrial zones of Iran

• Feasibility of solar and wind energy for three locations of Iran was investigated.
• All locations were suitable for solar energy utilization.
• The optimum tilt angles of solar surfaces were determined.
• Chabahar was unsuitable, but Kish and Salafchegan were marginal for wind purpose.

This paper aims to evaluate the potential of renewable energy sources of solar and wind in three free economic and industrial zones of Chabahar, Kish and Salafchegan in Iran. Feasibility of harnessing solar energy was investigated by using key solar parameters like monthly mean global, beam and diffuse solar radiation as well as clearness index. It was found that all locations had great potentials for utilizing different solar energy systems. Additionally, the monthly, seasonal, semi-yearly and yearly optimum tilt angles of south-facing solar surfaces were determined. For all zones, adjusting the tilt angle twice a year or in other words, the semi-yearly tilt adjustment for two periods of warm (April–September) and cold (October–March) were highly recommended, since it offers almost the same level of annual solar energy gain (SEG) as those of monthly and seasonal adjustments. Weibull Distribution Function (WDF) was performed for analyzing the wind potentials at different heights. It was found that Chabahar was not suitable for wind energy development, but Kish and Salafchegan with yearly wind powers of 111.28 W/m2 and 114.34 W/m2, respectively ranked in class 2 which are considered marginal for wind power development. Three different wind turbine models were proposed for Kish and Salafchegan.