Investigation of applicability of solar pumping systems for East Azerbaijan region

Today, we do not have to use fossil fuels or any source that will contaminate the environment for energy production when there are many energy sources available. Alternative energy solutions imposed by the establishment, such as hydrogen, biomass and even nuclear are highly insufficient, dangerous, and exist only to perpetuate the profit structure the industry has created. Looking beyond the propaganda and self serving solutions that energy companies put forward, there are a number of clean, abundant and renewable sources of energy available for power generation. Solar energy is well known in society, but the real potential of these sources remains unexpressed. Solar energy, derived from the sun, has such abundance, that one hour of light at high noon contains more energy than what the entire world consumes in a year. Furthermore the issue is not the lack of alternative but the technology that will use it. This study aims at investigating solar powered photovoltaic (PV) water pump systems and the technological feasibility of these systems in the climate conditions of the Tabriz in East Azerbaijan province of Iran. In this regard, various solar powered photovoltaic systems are designed according to the climate conditions of the Tabriz lowland, the characteristics of the existing water wells, the cultivated agricultural products and the amount of water used in the cultivation of these products. The CLIMWAT and CROPWAT programs that developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) were used in this study to calculate realistic amounts of irrigation water for the agriculture in the study area. Solar powered water pump systems are modeled by using Lorentz Compass program. As a result, the use of solar photovoltaic water pumping systems has been found technically feasible to meet the irrigation needs of agriculture in the study area.