South Africa's Solar Park Shines with Top Global Irradiation Levels

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Center for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at South Africa's Stellenbosch University has been working in partnership with GeoModel Solar (Bratislava, Slovakia) to measure and analyze data so that the solar resources available to the planned Solar Park can be predicted. The South African government is backing the construction of the 5,000-megawatt (MW) park and renewable energy corridor in the Upington area of the Northern Cape province.

For more information, see February 25, 2011, article - Fluor Develops Master Plan for South Africa's 5,000 MW Solar Park.

Results indicate that South Africa has one of the best Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI) levels in the world. The DNI metric is applied to forecast the output of concentrated solar power stations as receivers (heliostats) track the path of the sun through daylight hours.

The research group calculated long-term averages at the Solar Park site to be 2,816 kilowatt hours per square meter (kWh/m2) per year. This DNI value compares to the 2,000 to 2,200 kWh/m2 in Spain, where a number of CSP projects are in the pipeline. In the U.S., CSP plants are working at DNI levels of about 2,700 kWh/m2.

The results show that the Northern Cape has extremely high solar irradiance. In fact, it is higher than those regions in North Africa, where the ambitious Desertec project is planned to create Saharan-sourced solar power for European and Middle Eastern consumption. It is reported that some areas to the west of Upington have higher DNI values than those reported for the Solar Park area.

There are other CSP projects planned in the area, including a 100-MW project being planned by Eskom, the country's state-owned power utility.

As South Africa's renewable drive gathers speed, Eskom will receive a 100 million-euro loan ($144 million) from the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) for the 100-MW windfarm at Sere in Western Cape province, 300 kilometers north of Cape Town. This loan grant will assist in starting construction on the project.

For more information, see August 5, 2011, article - South Africa Launches Bidding for 3,725 Megawatts of Renewable Projects.

Earlier this year, the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved a $365 million loan for South African renewable projects. In 2010, the World Bank allocated $260 million of its $3.75 billion loan to Eskom for the utility's wind and solar projects.

It is expected that a number of renewable projects from independent power producers (IPP) will be launched at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP 17 (Conference of the Parties) meeting, which is to be held in November in Durban, South Africa.

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