Evaluation of Economic Indicators for the Use of Solar Energy in Rural Areas with Modified PSO Algorithm

This paper aims to assess the use of solar energy from economic perspective by utilizing the Modified Particle Swarm Optimization (MPSO) algorithm. For this purpose, one of the villages in Iran that is deprived of electricity was selected as a case study. The cost of providing electricity to the village was calculated using both the national grid and solar energy. To do economic analysis, two objective functions Profitability Index (PI) and Net Present Value (NPV) were considered as indicators. MPSO algorithm was then used to optimize the indicators so that the performance of the desired design is economically efficient. The findings demonstrated that the economic indicators for the region's electricity supply would be negative without optimizing the objective functions and that using the national electricity network would result in substantially lower economic indicators than using solar energy. However, the optimal allocation of resources by following the presented algorithm makes the economic indicators positive.

Keywords:

Economic Perspective , Modified Particle Swarm Optimization (MPSO) , Net Present Value (NPV) , Profitability Index (PI) , Solar Energy