Techno‐economic assessment of large‐scale renewable energy systems: a case study in the Gulf Cooperation Council

This study assesses the techno-economic and environmental performance of large-scale hybrid renewable energy systems in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. A 3 GW hybrid solar-wind plant comprising 1.5 GW of bifacial PV capacity and 1.5 GW of wind capacity was evaluated across five GCC sites: KSA, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. Technical simulations used Meteonorm 8.2 meteorological data, PVsyst for bifacial PV modelling, and HOMER Pro for wind-energy simulation and techno-economic analysis over a 25-year project lifetime. The assessment used a 5% discount rate and a 2% inflation rate. KSA achieved the highest annual renewable electricity generation and electricity exported to the grid, at 9594.7 and 9434.1 GWh/year, respectively, followed by Oman at 9287.7 and 9128.5 GWh/year. Grid-delivered levelised cost of energy (LCOE) ranged from $0.0262/kWh in KSA to $0.0396/kWh in the UAE, with Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar at $0.0271/kWh, $0.0352/kWh, and $0.0371/kWh, respectively. Reported NPC ranged from $4805.3 million to $9271.1 million, with a payback period of 4.03–6.28 years. Annual avoided CO2 emissions ranged from 2.29 to 5.21 Mt/yr, corresponding to 55.4−126.8 Mt over 25 years. Overall, KSA and Oman demonstrated the strongest technical and cost performance, highlighting the importance of site-specific renewable resource conditions for large-scale hybrid PV-wind deployment across the GCC.