Africa has the world‘s largest potential for solar energy production through floating photovoltaic parks. This was revealed by a report published by the German solar industry association (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft), which represents the entire solar sector in Germany.
Entitled “Solarize Africa market report 2023”, the report recalls that floating solar (or floating photovoltaic) consists of installing solar panels on a body of water, most of the time artificial and whose environmental value is very low, as gravel pits, lakes or hydroelectric dams. The most obvious advantages of this technique are the exploitation of unused water bodies where there is no conflict of use, a 10% higher yield than that of terrestrial solar parks, favored by the cooling of water-heated modules and a significant reduction in evaporation. from water tanks.
Africa’s enormous potential for this mode of energy production derives from its numerous freshwater reservoirs suitable for this type of new generation photovoltaic parks: Africa has more than 100,000 square kilometers of freshwater reservoirs that could be used to install floating solar power plants. Exploiting just 1% of this area would translate into a potential capacity of 100 gigawatts (GW), or about ten times the total installed solar capacity on the continent at the end of 2022, for an annual production of 167 terawatt hours (TWh). In several African countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Ethiopia and Cameroon the potential for solar energy generation through floating parks even exceeds the annual electricity demand. [Da Redazione InfoAfrica]
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