Analysis of Climate Capacity Building in Wind Exploitation in the Southern Strip of Iran





Introduction: In an era marked by environmental challenges and unsustainable energy consumption, the need for renewable energy sources is greater than ever. Fossil fuel reliance has not only accelerated climate change but also endangered ecological balances. Wind energy emerges as a sustainable and clean solution to meet rising energy demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Iran's southern belt, covering the provinces of Khuzestan, Fars, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and parts of Sistan and Baluchestan, represents a region of untapped potential for wind energy. This study examines the climatic suitability of 98 counties in these provinces to identify favorable and unfavorable zones for wind energy development. Using advanced clustering techniques, we aim to provide a detailed understanding of the region’s wind energy potential and its role in transitioning towards renewable energy sources.

Materials and Methods The area assessed in this study is located in the southern strip of Iran and has significant geographical and climatic diversity. This area includes the provinces of Khuzestan, Fars, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and parts of the south of the Baluchestan watershed within the geographical limits of Sistan and Baluchestan province. This area is located along the northern coast of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, which includes the Zagros Mountains and coastal plains. In this study, daily data on wind speed, pressure, and average temperature from the Meteorological Organization were used. The period of use of meteorological data was 2015-2024. To prepare the daily average of the aforementioned data, the average was obtained for each of the 366 days of the year from the period 2015-2024. This study was conducted based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. First, the data of various factors required for the analysis were prepared. Apart from the average temperature, pressure, and wind speed, other factors were extracted by calculation. After extracting the data of the factors in question, in the first stage, the data of the factors obtained were scored using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The purpose of scoring was to determine what rank the stations in the study area could achieve in terms of wind energy utilization capacity building based on the 8 factors described and their weights. In weighting the factors used in this analysis, the total weights are 1, meaning the weights are based on hundredths or percentages. Annual wind power density has been assigned the highest possible weight, 0.25. This is because this factor is more influential than other factors in wind capacity building. The next factor that has received more weight is wind speed. This factor also has a higher score because of its direct impact on wind power density. A weight of 0.1 has been considered for other factors. However, a weight of -0.1 (negative one-tenth) has been assigned to the average temperature factor. The negative weight given to this factor is because the higher the temperature value, the lower the wind power density. Therefore, when running the hierarchical analysis, in order to make the weight of this factor positive, all the data in the temperature column is inverted during execution so that the weight assigned to the temperature factor becomes positive.

Results and Discussion. This study has investigated the climatic capacity building of wind exploitation in the southern strip of Iran. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process method has been used to separate the desirable and undesirable areas in terms of climatic capacity building in wind exploitation. The analytic hierarchy process method is one of the powerful methods for separating and extracting specific points in studies with large amounts of data. In this method, the author can obtain results close to reality from his study by selecting the desired factors and giving appropriate weight to each factor. After extracting the results, it was found that the northwest regions of Fars Province and the southeast of Khuzestan and Hormozgan provinces have obtained the highest possible scores compared to other regions and are introduced as desirable areas in the capacity building of wind exploitation in the southern strip of Iran. Also, the southern regions of Fars Province, the northwest of Hormozgan Province, the center of Khuzestan Province, and the east of the south of Baluchestan watershed have obtained the lowest scores compared to other regions and are introduced as undesirable areas in the capacity building of wind exploitation in the southern strip of Iran. By station analysis, Jask station with a score of 35.42 percent from Hormozgan was the most favorable, and Qir and Karzin with a score of 8.80 percent from Fars were the most unfavorable stations in this study in terms of climate capacity building in wind utilization. The most important factors affecting climate capacity building in wind utilization were also identified as wind speed, wind power density, and stability in wind speed above the energy production threshold.