Abstract
The majority of the Ethiopian population lives in rural areas and uses wood for domestic energy consumption. Using wood and fuel for domestic uses accounts for deforestation and health problems, which is also dangerous for the environment. The Ethiopian government has been planning to generate power from available renewable resources around the community. Therefore, determining the water surface potential of energy harvesting with floating solar photovoltaic system by using geographic information system is used to support decision-makers to use high potential areas. To identify useable areas for floating solar photovoltaic, factors that affect the usability were identified and weighted by using Analytical Hierarchy Processes. Thus, weighted values and reclassified values were multiplied to do the final usability map of floating solar photovoltaic with ArcGIS software. Due to the improper location of floating solar photovoltaic, efficiency is dropped. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify the most usable surface of water bodies in Amhara regional, state irrigation dams for generating electrical power. The usability of the water surface for floating solar photovoltaic power plant was 63.83%, 61.09%, and 57.20% of Angereb, Rib, and Koga irrigation dams, respectively. The majority of the usable areas were found in the middle of the water surface. Nature water surface is a key factor in generating solar energy; it affects the floating solar photovoltaic and irradiance coming to the solar photovoltaic panel surface.
Highlights
Using promising alternative energy technology to extract maximum power from solar photovoltaic source is a reasonable choice for electrification in Ethiopia
Solar PV floating is currently emerging technology which uses the surface of the water for power generation
Amhara regional state is one of the nine regional stats located in the north-west part of Ethiopia between 9°20′ and 14°20′ north latitude and 36°20′ and 40°20′ east longitude
Summary
Using promising alternative energy technology to extract maximum power from solar photovoltaic source is a reasonable choice for electrification in Ethiopia. Floating solar PV on the water surface is an ideal solution to improve the technical and economic issue. Solar PV floating is currently emerging technology which uses the surface of the water for power generation. Water bodies like irrigation dams, canals or remediation, water reservoirs, lakes, and ocean are used for floating [1, 2]. Due to the water surface cooling effect, the floating PV system on the water surface has a lower temperature that reduces the cell temperature of the solar PV panel. Floating solar panel is 11% more efficient than the land-based solar panels [3,4,5]
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