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Bangalore: Researchers in Japan claim the Himalayas
have a large potential of photovoltaic (PV) electric power
generation from sunlight that can supply energy to India and
China. They suggest these mountains could be more ideal than hot
deserts for locating solar power generators.
The research by Kotaro Kawajiri and colleagues at the National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in
Tsukuba, Japan, appears in the latest issue of American Chemical
Society (ACS) journal Environmental Science & Technology.
According to the study, installation of crystalline silicon (c-Si)
solar arrays in less than four percent of the Himalayan region
could produce about 3.1 trillion kWh of energy -- that was the
total electricity consumption in China in 2007.
Contrary to popular notion that hot deserts are the best suited to
generate solar energy, the study concludes that some of the
world's coldest landscapes - including the Himalaya mountains, the
Andes and even Antarctica -- are ideal locations for solar arrays.
Kawajiri and co-workers explain that the potential for generating
electricity with renewable solar energy depends heavily on
geographic location. They estimated global solar energy potential,
based on existing available data, taking into account the effects
of temperature on PV system performance, the ACS said in a
statement.
As expected, the researchers found that many hot regions are ideal
locations for solar arrays. "However, they also found that many
cold regions at high elevations receive a lot of sunlight - so
much so that their potential for producing power from the sun is
even higher than in some desert areas."
The southern Andes, the Himalaya region and Antarctica have the
largest PV potentials. Although PV modules with less sensitivity
to temperature are preferable for the high temperature regions, PV
modules that are more responsive to temperature may be more
effective in the low temperature regions, their report says.
And the types of photovoltaic cell - that is made from crystalline
silicon -- in use today actually function better at low
temperatures. Output from a photovoltaic module in the Himalayas,
for example, could be 50 percent higher than output from the same
module in a hot desert.
Photovoltaic electric power generation is a promising technology
for generating renewable energy from solar irradiation. However,
the output of PV is sensitive to its operating conditions,
especially ambient temperature, the researchers said.
They said their objective was to identify the areas of the world
with the highest PV potential considering the spatial and temporal
variation of temperature. For this study, they partitioned the
world into 64,800 regions by gridding the entire globe along 360
degrees longitude and 180 degrees latitude.
They found that regions with high solar irradiation values include
the southwest region in North America, the Southern Andes region
in South America, central and South Africa, Midwest Asia, the
Himalaya region in Asia, the northwest region of Australia, and
Antarctica.
The regions with the largest irradiation values have large PV
potentials, the scientists said. "In particular, the Himalaya and
Southern Andes regions have energy potentials due to the
combination of large irradiation values and low temperatures." The
Himalayan region is especially attractive because it is near
regions with large future energy demands, such as China and India,
they said.
The researchers admit that many problems must be addressed when
installing PV systems in high altitude regions, such as
transporting the PV system and increased need for maintenance due
to the severe environmental conditions.
While Antarctica also has large PV potential because of its high
irradiation and low temperature, the feasibility for utilizing
this potential in this region is low due to the large seasonal
variance of PV energy generation and the difficulty of maintaining
the PV system.
"If some way can be developed to store the generated energy, in
the form of hydrogen or refined metals, then it may be possible to
utilize the large potential in this region in the future."
"The framework we have presented show what type of PV module is
suitable for different regions," the researchers said. "These
findings could help stakeholders to evaluate the potential for PV
energy generation considering temperature in addition to
irradiation."
Although they have focussed on temperature, the researchers hope
to refine their work in future by considering other variables such
as transmission losses, snowfall and the cooling effect by wind.
"We hope that this work will provide a first step to investigate
the most suitable locations for PV energy generation in the
world," the researchers said.
(Killugudi Jayaraman can be contacted at killugudi@hotmail.com)
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