Solar power in Africa

World map of 13-year averaged cloud cover made by NASA Earth Observatory

World map of global solar horizontal irradiation

Africa is often considered and referred as the "Sun continent" or the continent where the Sun's influence is the greatest.^[1]

According to the "World Sunshine Map", Africa receives many more hours of bright sunshine during the course of the year than any other continent of the Earth^[2] : all the sunniest places on the planet lie there.^[3]
Africa is interestingly dominated by clear skies even beyond deserts (ex : Sahara, Namib, Kalahari),^[4] however, the equatorial and central regions are considerably cloudier than the sunshiny tropics and subtropics.
The whole of the continent is blessed with plenty of sunlight except the moist rainforests (ex : Congo Basin), as desert and savannah regions of Africa stand up as Earth's largest cloud-free area.^[5]

The eastern Sahara/northeastern Africa is particularly noted for its world sunshine records : the area experiences not only the greatest mean annual duration of bright sunshine^[6] as the Sun shines bright during approximatively as much as 4,300 hours^[7] which is equal to 97% of the possible total^[8] but also the highest mean annual values of solar radiation ^[9][10] (the maximum recorded being over 220 kcal/cm²^[11]) .

The low latitude of the landmass is another asset : much of the continent lies in the intertropical zone, where the intensity and the strength of the sunlight are always high.
The area contains lots of vast sun-drenched arid and semi-arid expanses in the north, in the south, and to a lesser extent in the east : about two fifths of the continent are desert, and thus continuously sunny.
The combination of all these geographical and climatic factors is the cause of the huge solar potential of Africa. This gives solar power the potential to bring energy to virtually any location in Africa without the need for expensive large scale grid level infrastructural developments.

Declining solar equipment costs are expected to significantly increase solar installations in Africa with an industry projection forecasting that the continent's annual PV market will expand to 2.2 GW by 2018.^[12]

The Kingdom of Morocco’s solar plan, which is one of the world’s largest solar energy projects and estimated to cost about $9 billion, was introduced in November 2009 with the aim of establishing 2,000MW of solar power by 2020. Five sites have been selected for the development of solar power plants combining a number of technologies including Concentrated Solar Production, Parabolic Through as well as Photovoltaics, with the 500MW phase one solar power complex at Ouarzazate being the first to be developed.^[13][14][15] The first part of the 500MW project is set produce 160MW of power by 2015.^[16] Morocco, the only African country to have a power cable link to Europe, aims to benefit from the €400bn ($573.8bn) expected to come from the ambitious pan-continental Desertec Industrial Initiative.^[17]

A 50 MW photovoltaic power plant is planned for Garissa, in Kenya, which is expected to produce approximately 76,473 MWh/year.^[18]

A 155 MW photovoltaic power plant is planned for Ghana, and is expected to be completed in 2015.^[19]

A 75 MW solar power plant started production on September 13, 2013 in Kalkbult, in South Africa's Northern Cape (implemented by Scatec). Two other PV plants will be completed by the same company in 2014. These are located at Linde in the Northern Cape and Dreunberg in the Eastern Cape, both sun-drenched regions boasting some of the best conditions for solar power in the world. Altogether, these 3 plants will provide power for around 90,000 South African households.

There are also many small-scale modular solar power installations being implemented across the continent at the village and household levels.^[20]

The distribution of solar resources across Africa is fairly uniform, with more than 85% of the continent's landscape receiving at least 2,000 kWh/(m² year).^[21][22][23]

There is considerable academic and commercial interest in a new form of Concentrated Solar Power, called STEM, for off-grid applications to produce 24 hour industrial scale power for remote communities and mining sites. STEM uses fluidized silica sand as a thermal storage and heat transfer medium for CSP systems. It has been developed by Italy's Magaldi Industries. The first commercial application of STEM will take place in Sicily in late 2015.^[24]

Source:^[25]

See also

• Solar power in Algeria
• Solar power in Morocco
• Solar power in South Africa
• Renewable energy in Africa
• Solar power by country

References