Abstract
Nowadays Rwanda's target is to transit from a developing country to a middle-income country. One of the objectives to achieve this is the government encouraging private companies and individuals to invest in solar energy use either solar home system, mini-grid or grid-connected technology. The main objective of the study was to investigate the environmental impact assessment of solar energy technologies in Rwanda and its related plant performances. The assessment of the Rwamagana solar power plant (GigaWatt) was defined as a case study. In this study, the data and information were collected from the rural community of Rwamagana district, power plant and Rwanda energy group (REG). The Rwanda national electrification framework shows that solar energy technology is the third after hydropower, thermal and peat technologies. Solar PV modules used to produce electricity of 8.5 MW to the national grid while more than 14,970 solar home systems are installed in different parts of Rwanda. As shown in the presented results, there were no global warming emissions associated with generating electricity from solar energy technologies while Rwamagana solar power plant used larger utility-scale solar photovoltaic panels to raise the land degradation and habitat loss. The paper is concluded focusing on the ways to avoid negative and enhance the positive impacts of solar energy technology in the selected power plant.
Highlights
Rwanda has an electricity generation capacity of224.6MW where most of this power comes from different power plants such as hydro (47%), thermal 27% (Diesel and Heavy fuel generators), solar PV (5%) and methane (14. %)
As of December 2019, the cumulative connectivity rate is 52.8% of Rwandan households, including 38.5% connected to the national grid and 14.3% accessing through off-grid systems
Rwanda is well benefited with solar energy, even during the months of the rainy seasons there is daily and sufficient sunshine, especially in the Eastern province, which is known for high irradiance values as it is indicated in Figure 1, the average daily global solar irradiation on the tilted surface has been estimated to be 5.2 kWh per m2 per day from Photovoltaic Geography Information System (PVGIS)
Summary
Rwanda has an electricity generation capacity of224.6MW (in 2019) where most of this power comes from different power plants such as hydro (47%), thermal 27% (Diesel and Heavy fuel generators), solar PV (5%) and methane (14. %). The U.S National Air and Space Agency (NASA), as well as the University of Rwanda, assessed Rwanda’s solar radiation and solar resources. Rwanda’s Eastern Province has the greatest potential for generating energy from solar resources. Another academic assessment, undertaken in partnership with the MININFRA Department of Meteorology in 2007, used a meteorological data set to estimate monthly averaged global solar radiation [1]. Rwanda is well benefited with solar energy, even during the months of the rainy seasons there is daily and sufficient sunshine, especially in the Eastern province, which is known for high irradiance values as it is indicated, the average daily global solar irradiation on the tilted surface has been estimated to be 5.2 kWh per m2 per day from Photovoltaic Geography Information System (PVGIS). The long-term monthly average daily global irradiation ranges from 4.8 kWh/ (m2 day) (location Burera, the month of May) of to 5.8 kWh/ (m2 day) (location Nyanza, the month of July) which shows good potential for solar energy development [1]
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