Commercial solar power generation systems in North Africa

Hence, the resource of solar energy is rich in North Africa, and the potential is quite large to build solar power generation base in the most of North Africa region countries, such as Morocco Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt . In recent years, North African economy is continued to grow steadily and energy demand is accelerated.

The North African region is rich in solar energy and is close to European continent. It is in line with the concept of the global energy interconnection to transport clean energy and electricity through transcontinental power connection. The development mode and scale of each country in North Africa are determined by economy of solar development.

Land availability challenges. While Africa has vast areas of land, siting solar power projects is not always easy. Several layers of negotiation are frequently required between local officials, local landowners and the central government before a suitable site (or sites) can be agreed upon.

Storage helps ease solar integration, while larger balancing areas help shift power quickly and efficiently from where it is generated to where it is consumed. In the absence of an integrated grid and/or energy storage systems Africa will not be able to take full advantage of solar PV as the lowest cost generation source in history.

The economic analysis of solar energy development is the basis of promoting the solar energy planning in north Africa and realizing the clean energy power transmission among continents.

This electricity can be fed into the grid or stored in batteries for later use. Plant sizes vary from a few watts to over 1GW in large, ground mounted solar parks. PV power plants in Africa are currently not larger than 90 MW each. More than 4,000 solar PV plants are operational with an approximate 8GW in capacity.