Prospects for large-scale solar thermal electricity generation from the LIBYAN desert: technical feasibility.

Aldali, Yasser; Henderson, Douglas; Muneer, Tariq

Abstract

The Great Sahara desert covers the entire range of Libyan longitude 11o 44’ to 23o 58’ E and a latitude range of 24o 17’ through to 30o 31’N, thus covering an area of 1,750,000 sq km and 88% of this land is desert. The authors have measured hourly solar radiation at Kufra oasis (24o 17’N, 23o 15’E) within the Libyan Desert and found it to be a most reliable and consistent energy resource - the rain fall averages a few mm every 30 years. With no cloud cover throughout the year, the measured noon clearness-index often exceeding 0.84 and availability of large volumes of potable water from underground aquifers, large-scale electrical generation warrants a serious feasibility study. This article presents the technical feasibility for Cylindrical Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) thermal energy conversion.

• Start Date: Jul 19, 2009
• End Date: Jul 23, 2009
• Publication Date: 2009
• Deposit Date: May 23, 2012
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 517-525
• Book Title: Proceedings of the ASME 2009 3rd International Conference on Energy Sustainability
• ISBN: 978-0-7918-4890-6
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1115/ES2009-90007
• Keywords: Solar radiation; Cylindrical Parabolic Concentrator; thermal energy; electrical generation; Libyan desert
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/5292
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/ES2009-90007