Currently, the main energy source used in rural areas of Ethiopia for cooking and heating is unprocessed biomass and fossil fuel such as kerosene, paraffin and petrol/diesel. These energy sources generate large volume of indoor air pollution that increases the risk of chronic diseases. Solar energy is the most practical and economical way of bringing power to poor and remote communities in the long-term and Ethiopia is strategically located in a maximum sun shines hours zone. This study assessed the potential of a solar PV power system to provide the required electricity for a rural community near Nekemte city in Oromiya regions of Ethiopia. The sunshine hour’s data was obtained from the National Meteorological Service Agency (NMA). Results showed an abundant (average) solar energy potential of 5.52 KWh/m2/day. Electric load for a single household, school and clinic was estimated at 313, 2064 and 2040 Wh/day respectively. The cost of energy from solar PV system was estimated at about $1.2/kWh, $0.92/kWh and $0.87/KWh for household, school and clinic respectively. The findings encourage the use of the PV systems to electrify the remote sites of Ethiopia considering it long-term benefits and less cost of installation compared to national grid extension to the remote sites.
The detailed knowledge of the local solar radiation is important but, measuring instruments are not readily available in many places, particularly in Ethiopia. Therefore, this work focused on the application of climate data to compare sunshine and temperature based empirical equation of the global solar radiation in Kombolcha sites, Amhara region, Ethiopia. For data obtained in a period of 2008 to 2017 from the Kombolcha meteorological agency correlations be tested for errors using: Mean Bias error (MBE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Percentage Error (MPE), and correlation Coefficient (r). The latest computing MATLAB soft ware and excel spread sheet has been used for the entire analysis. The empirical equation having the least error was selected for Kombolcha sites. Therefore, according to accuracy the Hargreaves and Samani empirical equation is suitable for Kombolcha sites than Angstrom-Prescott empirical equation. The abundant average global solar radiation of 6.19 KWh/m 2 /day and 7.09 KWh/m 2 /day was estimated using sun shine and temperature based empirical equation respectively. This result showed that there is good solar potential in Kombolcha, Amhara region, Ethiopia.
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