POTENTIAL OF SOLAR ENERGY AND GENERATION WITH GRID CONNECTED PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS IN MOZAMBIQUE

Abstract

Photovoltaic solar energy is a clean source and figure as an important option for electricity generation. Mozambique, located on the southeastern coast of Africa, with a population of 22 million inhabitants, is endowed with considerable hydraulic potential and a rich potential in other renewable energy sources, suitable for electricity generation, such as solar, wind, geothermal , waves and biomass. However, the country lies underdeveloped in using these resources for electricity production. This paper presents the potential of solar energy and photovoltaic generation in Mozambique in the form of maps produced from data obtained from NREL, the American National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL´s database provides monthly daily average irradiation on areas of Earth's surface, called cells, with approximately 40 km by 40 km, obtained from the Climatological Solar Radiation Model. Monthly and annual tilted irradiation maps were prepared considering the slope equal to the latitude, which are suitable for applications with grid connected photovoltaic systems. The map of potential photovoltaic generation was developed considered a 1 kWp system with performance ratio equal to 0.75. Results show that Mozambique has high levels of tilted annual irradiation, in the range of 5 to 6 kWh/day, and can provide photovoltaic generation estimated in the range of 1450 to 1750 kWh/kWp/year.