Wind energy potential and economic assessment of four locations in Sistan and Balouchestan province in Iran Farivar Fazelpour a , Elin Markarian b , Nima Soltani c, * a Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Islamic Azad University-South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran b Department of Mechanical Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran c Young Researchers and Elite Club, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran article info Article history: Received 8 June 2016 Received in revised form 4 February 2017 Accepted 23 March 2017 Available online 28 March 2017 Keywords: Renewable energy Wind speed Wind power potential Wind energy Weibull distribution Economic assessment abstract Utilization of wind turbines to produce energy has been increasing in recent years, due to technology advancement, cost stability and environmental issues. In this paper, the wind resource and economic feasibility have been studied to avoid investment risk in cites of Zabol, Zahak, Zahedan and Mirjaveh in Sistan and Balouchestan province of Iran. The Weibull distribution function has been applied to estimate the wind power and energy density, using meteorological data. Determination of coefficient, root mean square error, mean bias error and mean bias absolute error are also calculated to ensure the accuracy of the statistical analysis of fitted distribution. Windographer software has been employed to investigate the prevailing wind direction. The estimated annual energy densities are 2495.36, 2355.69, 1265.24 and 1214.01 kWh/m 2 /year, and the annual mean power densities are 284.97, 269.02, 144.49 and 138.64 W/ m 2 . It is found that Zabol and Zahedan are suitable for large scale power generation. The results indicate that using DW61-900 kW wind turbines are highly beneficial for Zabol and Zahak, while for Zahedan, DW52/54-250 kW wind turbine is more appropriate for generating electricity. However, Mirjaveh is suitable for off-grid applications. It should be noted that in this analysis, monetary units are presented in 2016 U.S. dollar. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction We have been burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels i.e. coal, oil, gasoline and natural gas in energy production or con- sumption since the industrial revolution got into full swing in the 19th century. Global warming and climate change are defined as an increase in average global temperatures. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), have a crucial role in global warming which is a growing concern for the environmental issues [1]. These gases have been arisen out of misuse of conventional fossil fuels. In addition, due to industrialization and population growth, demand for energy reserves has been growing rapidly. All these delicate problems have led energy policy makers to shift toward non- exhaustible energies with lower carbon footprint [2e4]. Wind is a non-exhaustible, clean and benign environmentally source of en- ergy found abundantly in most countries [5]. Wind power is a rapidly advancing technology and has gained in popularity due to its low and stable costs notwithstanding conventional fossil fuels [6,7]. The total accessible wind energy approximates to 10 million MW which can provide 35% of world’s total demand [8]. The global installed wind energy capacity attained 432 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2015 [9]. The installation in 2014 has surpassed 50GW which is a sharp rise comparing with 2013 when the installation was approximately 35.6 GW. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) is the international trade association for the wind power industry, and their mission is to ensure that wind power surmounts all ob- stacles to provide substantial environmental and economic bene- fits. According to GWEC report China succeeded in cornering 45% of the annual market with 23 GW installation in 2014. China is leading the market at present with total installed capacity of 114 GW. USA and Germany are the second and the third leading markets with total installation of 65 and 39 GW, respectively [10]. It is forecasted that by the end of 2019 the cumulative installed capacity will reach 666 GW. Prior to installing a wind farm, the wind energy potential, feasibility and operating cost must be assessed to avoid investment risk and maximize the efficiency [11]. A large number of researches * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: F_fazelpour@azad.ac.ir (F. Fazelpour), Markarian.elin@gmail. com (E. Markarian), Nima_soltani@yahoo.com (N. Soltani). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2017.03.072 0960-1481/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Renewable Energy 109 (2017) 646e667