Browsing by Author "OMAR HAMMAD SALMAN ALBALAWI"

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STATE OF THE ART IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF CURRENT AND FUTURE ENERGY PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA
OMAR HAMMAD SALMAN ALBALAWI; (Azim Houshyar, Ph.D., Bob White, Ph.D., (Co-Chairs
In history, it has been proved that any society that fails in getting sustainable resources usually collapses if the transition to sustainability is not achieved on time. Saudi Arabia possesses one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Consequently, almost all current energy in use in the country is derived from fossil fuel-based systems that are environmentally unfriendly and sometimes inefficient. The country is experiencing continuous population growth and an enormous growth rate of electricity consumption rate coupled with increasing industrialization and urbanization that together are putting a strain on the current energy systems. The massive use of open gas turbines operated with heavy fuel oil, natural gas, and crude, as well as the use of diesel generators, implies a negative impact on the environment, society, and economy, the latest due to the fact that fossil fuels are heavily subsided for electricity generation by providing them at a much lower cost than the international market. Hence more energy systems are required to meet the increasing future electricity demand. The energy sector contributes to sustainable development, but its conversion to electricity is associated with social, economic, and environmental effects. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to develop a quantitative model to analyze the current fossil fuel scenario and generate alternative scenarios with different generation technologies in Saudi Arabia such as nuclear power, coal, wind, and solar, the latest both with photovoltaics and concentrated solar power. A methodology based on the Eco-Electricity application was extensively described with typical indicators for energy analysis from the side of environmental impact analysis, social & health, and economy. By using the state of the art database from the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and ecoinvent, the current and the six proposed scenarios were modeled and calculated. From the comparison of technologies and scenarios, it was extracted that the combination of highly efficient and flexible combined cycle gas turbines and integrated solar combined cycle gas turbines operated with natural gas with renewables, mainly photovoltaics and concentrated solar power, was a compromise between the lowest Levelized cost of electricity and a fairly low environmental and social & health impact.
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