Potential Use of Photovoltaic Power Plants in The Gaza Strip

Abstract

Energy is the biggest crisis to humanity in the future. Nowadays, most of the energy used on earth comes from oil, gas and coal. The irradiation from the sun is the biggest energy source. Building photovoltaic power plants to utilize the energy from sun will be an only way to sustain the life cycle on the earth. Electrical power shortage is an ongoing problem in Gaza Strip. In fact it has been getting worse due to the rapid increase of the population along with the dependency of this power on the conventional resources that mainly come from outside Gaza. The production of Gaza Power Plant meets about 20 percent of the Strip's total energy demand. In this article, discussions were addressed to study the potential of solar energy in Gaza Strip by building two photovoltaic power plants; the first scenario with 10 MWp on grid power plant, which will cover the deficit of energy during the sunny hours, was proposed to provide the network daily with about 50 MWh of energy. To obtain this 50 MWh, ten plants each of 1 MWp were proposed with a total area of 150 donums. The second scenario with 45 MWp power plant, which will cover the energy deficit along the day, was proposed to provide the network daily with about 160 MWh of energy. To obtain this amount of energy an area of 675 donums was found to be needed. The results were very attractive and the photovoltaic systems can compensate the energy deficit. Furthermore, the production cost of energy for the first scenario is considered low as 10.25 ¢/kWh when compared with the diesel generated energy from Gaza Power Plant, while the production cost of energy for the second scenario is considered to be high.