A Comparative Assessment of Annual Solar Irradiance Trends between Mpumalanga and Northern Cape Province in South Africa Using PVGIS

Lennox Boateng and Paidamwoyo Mhangara ()
Additional contact information
Lennox Boateng: School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa
Paidamwoyo Mhangara: School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-16

Abstract: South Africa has committed to reducing its greenhouse emissions by sixty-five percent by 2030 in their National Integrated Energy Plan (NEIP). The lack of investment and development for renewable energy sources put the country on an uncertain trajectory in fulfilling its 2030 energy commitments. At the same time, the country has been labeled as a region with one of the highest solar energy potentials. Provinces such as Mpumalanga and Northern Cape are on opposite ends of the matter, with Northern Cape is one of the leading provinces for renewal energy, while the Mpumalanga province remains the host to eighty-five per cent of the country’s coal plants. Solar energy is an abundant renewable energy source and can be assessed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques. In this paper, the geostatistical technique, Kriging, is employed to predict, estimate, and compare the regional distribution, potential, and variability of annual optimum solar energy (irradiance) between the Mpumalanga Province and Northern Cape Province. Spot-based radiation data are available for solar energy analyses from the GIS Web-based tool Photovoltaic Geographical Information Systems (PVGIS). Kriging was used to estimate the spatial variability of solar energy at an average error of 1.98505% for the Northern Cape Province and 2.32625% for the Mpumalanga Province. It was identified that the Northern Cape receives the highest annual optimum irradiation and has a low overall spatial variation in irradiation over its provincial area. Mpumalanga receives lesser amounts of irradiation but has high overall spatial variation over its provincial area. Most of Northern Cape’s central to northwestern regions have the highest annual optimum irradiation ranging from 2583 kWh/m 2 to 2638 kWh/m 2 , while Mpumalanga’s highest regions of annual irradiation occur primarily on its western and northwestern parts and ranges in highs of 2345 kWh/m 2 to 2583 kWh/m 2 .

Keywords: photovoltaic geographical information systems; photovoltaic technology; renewable energy; optimum solar irradiation; Kriging; Northern Cape; Mpumalanga (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/18/6665/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/18/6665/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:18:p:6665-:d:1241754

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().