Development of Rural Tourism in Iran Using PV-Based System: Finding the Best Economic Configuration

Rural tourism is an important factor in achieving economic, social, and cultural development. Given that villages in Iran do not have access to permanent electricity or are associated with high power outages, the provision of sustainable electricity through renewable energy can cause more tourists to choose these villages as their ultimate goal. Therefore, in this paper, for the first time, a hybrid system has been evaluated based on solar energy in 10 tourism target villages in Iran using HOMER software. This study investigated the design of the system with real and up-to-date data on equipment and fossil fuel prices taking into account transportation costs as well as a comprehensive study of energy-economic-environmental with electricity generation approach to the development of rural tourism. The results demonstrated that for the studied stations, the LCOE parameter was in the range of $ 0.615-0.722, the percentage of power supply by solar cells was in the range of 90-99 %, and the prevention of pollutants was 33.9-277 kg/year. According to the results, Meymand village is the most suitable and Mazichal village is the unsuitable station in the field of energy supply required by solar cells. The production pollution in the studied stations is mainly CO2 and results from the operational phase of the project and its amount is 979.5 kg/year. Given that the rural tourism has grown and become a solution for development, the authors hope that the present work results can be used as a perspective to help energy and rural tourism decision-makers.