Renewable Energy Global Innovations features: Strategical location map for photovoltaic power systems from environmental view point

Significance Statement

It’s well known that there are abundant sunlight and huge land in deserts. For example, comparing annual irradiation in Tokyo and in Sahara desert, the Sahara has 2685 kWh/m² which is twice as 1268 kWh/m² in the Tokyo. The deserts must be good for photovoltaic power systems. This is the first idea to start this research. Japanese research team started a feasibility study of installation of the photovoltaic power systems in deserts in large-scale use, which should be considered distance to the desert for transport and power transmission, and the harshness of desert. It was two decades ago. At that period, photovoltaic power systems were very expensive, and was used for remote area where it is not easy to install transmission lines.

The team built up international expert members under the umbrella of the Photovoltaic Power System Programme (PVPS) in the International Energy Agency (IEA). Members are not only electrical engineers but also financial, agricultural, soil and environmental expert were gotten together. The study was so interesting and good experiences of communication. However it was successfully finalized. Their four reports titled ‘Energy from the Desert’ were published, and the last version is available for free on the website of the IEA/PVPS.

This paper is continuation of the study. By the end of the Task 8, two research topics had been done. One is life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the very-large scale photovoltaic power systems (VLS-PV) installed in deserts, and remote sensing using satellite images to find stable land condition to identify suitable location for the VLS-PV in deserts. An irradiation map shows center of desert is the best place. However, it takes a lot of energy to transport huge amount of equipment, and need long transmission lines to cities. From the environmental and economical view point, it should be not good. Therefore, my paper focuses on the distance to include for an economical and environmental study. For this purpose, a geographical information system (GIS) was introduced to calculate differences of locations.

This figure is a map of CO₂ emissions of Photovoltaic systems. This is calculated from four type of data. They are results from LCA, irradiation data, City location for power transmission and Ports to import equipment. All they got together, and the map was published. It is easy to know locations where the Photovoltaic system can generate electricity with lower CO₂ emissions. Very high potential locations could be obtained in North Chili, east and west Sahara, and Mexico.

About The Author

Masakazu Ito, He is an associate professor at the Advanced Collaborative Research Organization for Smart Society (ACROSS) in the Waseda University in Japan. He is researching Life-Cycle Assessment of PV systems, Geographical Information Systems, and the smart grid technologies, especially those with PV systems, wind power and energy storages. He earned his Ph.D. from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. He was a Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) while he was Ph.D. student. He started as an assistant professor in the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and then became a JSPS overseas research fellow at the CEA at INES in France, researching the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and remote sensing for Very Large Scale Photovoltaic Systems.

He was a member of International Energy Agency (IEA), Photovoltaic Power System Programme (PVPS), Task8: Very large scale photovoltaic power generation systems in remote areas and Task12: PV environmental health and safety. He awarded several prize; Academic Researcher Award by the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 2004, Naoaki Ito Award (Special Encouragement Award) by Japan Solar Energy Society in 2012, Young Researcher Award by 17th International Photovoltaic Science and Engineering Conference (PVSEC-17) in 2007, Young Researcher Award by 3rd World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-3) in 2003, and so on. 

Journal Reference

Masakazu Ito¹, Sylvain Lespinats¹, Jens Merten¹,Philippe Malbranche¹, Kosuke Kurokawa². Life cycle assessment and cost analysis of very large-scale PV systems and suitable locations in the world. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol 24 Issue 2, 2016.

Show Affiliations

1. Laboratory for Solar Systems, Institut National d’Energie Solaire (INES), CEA, Le Bourget du lac Cedex, France
2. AES Center, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

 

 

Go To Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications

 

 

 

Read more research excellence studies on: Renewable Energy Global Innovations (http://ift.tt/21cCPA4)