Solar energy utilisation: Current status and roll-out potential

Abstract Solar energy is environmentally friendly technology, a great energy supply and one of the most significant renewable and green energy sources. It plays a substantial role in achieving sustainable development energy solutions. Therefore, the massive amount of solar energy attainable daily makes it a very attractive resource for generating electricity. Both technologies, applications of concentrated solar power or solar photovoltaics, are always under continuous development to fulfil our energy needs. Hence, a large installed capacity of solar energy applications worldwide, in the same context, supports the energy sector and meets the employment market to gain sufficient development. This paper highlights solar energy applications and their role in sustainable development and considers renewable energy’s overall employment potential. Thus, it provides insights and analysis on solar energy sustainability, including environmental and economic development. Furthermore, it has identified the contributions of solar energy applications in sustainable development by providing energy needs, creating jobs opportunities and enhancing environmental protection. Finally, the perspective of solar energy technology is drawn up in the application of the energy sector and affords a vision of future development in this domain. 

Solar energy technology and its roles in sustainable development

Predicting and improving global solar radiation models is important in Nigeria because, most government meteorological stations are unable to continuously set-up or measure this radiometric parameter in most metropolitan cities and remote villages where there is a severe need for electricity. This is because most locations are not connected to the national grid due to high cost implications. Global solar radiation (H) prediction has a great deal of benefits in adapting and implementing clean and sustainable energy infrastructure, and much more in detecting and adapting climate mitigation measures in locations affected by climate change externalities. The new Gumbel (GP) probabilistic model applied in this paper is renowned for its high prediction power and low input requirements on the coefficients of the Angstrom-Prescott (AP) model used by researchers to predict global solar radiation since 1940. This study's foremost intention was to investigate ways of generating sustainable and cleaner energy by using coefficients of the AP model in order to accelerate the greener economy in Nigeria. As such, the accuracy and suitability of 36 existing and developed empirical AP models, as well as 11 fitted GP models, were evaluated to estimate H in different climatic regions of Nigeria. The results revealed that AP models fitted with generalized datasets outperformed the 10 location-based models considered in this work and the 7 models selected from literature, however, the GP model outperformed all empirically fitted models. The model established by GP (M13) was used to optimize AP models with poor performance and those selected from literature. This study suggests that it is more realistic to apply the generalized and GP model to predict global solar radiation and generate AP estimation coefficients across Nigeria than using empirical modeling and AP estimation coefficient. This is illustrated by the high prediction accuracy, little or no instrumentation network, and the computational effort for a GP model over an instrumentation network required to generate sunshine hour datasets required to implement AP model predictions. The proposed GP model is sufficient as a valid predictive model that will promote a holistic understanding of the available solar resources in Nigeria and disseminate the application of solar photovoltaic technologies within the country. 

Prediction of global solar radiation potential for sustainable and cleaner energy generation using improved Angstrom-Prescott and Gumbel probabilistic models

Sustainable Electricity and Water for Europe, Middle East and North Africa

The global solar irradiation incident on a tilted surface with different tilt angles is one of the most important requirements for simulating solar energy systems. However, such data is often not available. For this reason scientists, database platforms and commercial software resort to employ transposition models to convert horizontal solar irradiation into tilted solar irradiation incident on any inclined surface at any degree. The present study considered a wide range of the most commonly used horizontal to tilted transposition models around the world. In the absence of measured information, the horizontal solar radiation was obtained from Solargis for six locations in Libya, which were carefully selected to represent all Libyan territories. Three cities were selected in the north (Tripoli, Sirte and Benghazi), a city in the middle (Al-Jufra) and two cities in the south (Sabha and Kufra). The proposed approach was applied to these cities for selected 22 transposition models and for various tilt angles (10°-90°) in order to determine the best model for use in each area at any given tilt angle. According to the obtained results, it is recommended to use Bugler; 1988 model as the most accurate model for the northern and central regions of the country, and Lui&Jordan model; 1963 as the most applicable model for the southern region.

Investigating the Applicability of Horizontal to Tilted Sky-Diffuse Solar Irradiation Transposition Models for Key Libyan Cities

The solar photovoltaic (PV) is one way of utilising incident solar radiation to produce electricity without carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. It's important here to give a general overview of the present situation of Libyan energy generation. This paper aimed to highlight the energy challenges that faced the Libyan state, and the possibility to diagnose and suggest a strategy to develop and finding solutions. The residential building loads represent the largest energy consumption in the country, which presents approximately 36%. A wide range of critical literature review takes place to understand the energy system situations. This study addresses the current situation of solar photovoltaic power in Libya, the use of solar energy, and proposes strategies adopted by Libya to encourage future applications of solar photovoltaic energy and electricity generation. Furthermore, this study investigates an opportunity to exploit solar photovoltaics to meet the deficiency in energy demand and by the affordable way. Lastly, we presented solar photovoltaics application in Libya; thus, it has tremendous opportunities and possibilities. Besides, available potential, reality challenges and drawn up future perspectives.

Salem Salem

Papers

Solar photovoltaic (PV) applications in Libya: Challenges, potential, opportunities and future perspectives