Development of a Solar-Powered Water Pumping System for Sustainable Irrigation in Arid Regions of Iraq: A Mechanical Engineering Approach

¹ Energy Department, Natural Resources Research Center, Tikrit University, Tikrit, Saladin, Iraq
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, JSPM Narhe Technical Campus, Pune, India

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 1 July 2026

Abstract

The lack of water and the increasing costs of energy sourced from fossil fuels remain pressing constraints to higher agricultural productivity in arid Iraq. For example, in the Salah Al-Din Governorate, the operational costs of water pumping and emissions from diesel-powered water pumps, which farmers tend to use, become irrelevant when one considers the operational unreliability and the emissions from diesel-powered water pumps, which farmers tend to use. Despite the average solar potential in Iraq being in the range of about 5.5 to 6.2 kWh/m²/day, solar-powered water pumping systems have not to this date been deployed due to a lack of locally adapted design models and very little institutional groundwork. The design and assessment of this system, which uses solar-powered water pumps for sustainable irrigation in arid Iraq, incorporates the design of a photovoltaics (PV) system with hydraulic pump modelling, then energy optimisation with, for example, MATLAB/Simulink and HOMER Pro. Primary indicators of performance and success would flow to incorporate water output with energy efficiency, levelised cost of energy (LCOE), and the avoided cost of emissions, specifically CO₂. The results demonstrate that the system can be depended upon to deliver the irrigation water of 44 m³/day with a decreasing LCOE of 0.06 USD/kWh after 15 years and with a payback of 3.8 years for a 1-ha farm. The ecological benefit of the system can be seen when the fuel pump is already an old diesel pump: 4.8 tonnes of CO₂ emissions are removed. The most important variables to consider are sensitivity to solar irradiance and depth to groundwater. Results indicate that SPWPS is technically feasible, economically viable and environmentally friendly solution to agricultural land in Iraq. Besides selling sustainable irrigation, such systems additionally demonstrate climate adaptability, decrease dependence on fossil fuels in rural areas, and are in line with countrywide goals on renewables in Iraq.