Abstract:
Energy resources that are conventional in nature, are utilized for most of the world’s energy sector’s demands. The all-important issue of global warming and the overdependence on fossil fuels to meet the energy requirements has pushed the stakeholders towards the use of renewable energy sources. Trends towards renewable energy technology are increasing globally in recent years. Pakistan has also started harnessing energy from renewables such as solar and wind along with the already integrated hydropower. AJK region is blessed with immense potential for renewable energy and provides a bulk of its energy to mainland Pakistan. Yet, it fails to fulfill its electricity requirements, especially in remote areas due to unreliable transmission systems and natural disasters. This study aims to identify and compare the suitable sites in this region that have promising clean energy potential in the form of solar, wind, and hydropower which can be utilized to establish stand-alone/on-grid, hybrid (hydro/PV/wind/diesel/battery) energy systems. Eleven different sites in this region were studied having renewable energy potential. The geological features of the sites were taken using ArcMap (Geographic information system tool) and data related to renewable energy potential was acquired from AJK’s Power Development Authority (AJKPDO) and NASA’s database. Then, these sites were compared based on specific criteria that took into account the major factors of the sites like the topography of the land as well as the renewable power potential using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) which is a multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) tool. The resulting scores obtained by the sites demonstrate the suitability of each site for the hybrid energy system. Thus, the most suitable sites can be used to integrate the On-Grid/Stand-alone Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) into the energy mix that can not only solve the power outage problems but also will enable us to move towards the use of clean energy and less dependency on fossil fuels.
