The potential of concentrating solar power in South Africa

In this paper all provinces of South Africa with a good potential for the implementation of large-scale concentrating solar power plants are identified using geographic information systems. The areas are assumed suitable if they get sufficient sunshine, are close enough to transmission lines, are flat enough, their respective vegetation is not under threat and they have a suitable land use profile. Various maps are created showing the solar resource, the slope, areas with "least threatened" vegetation, proximity to transmission lines and areas suitable for the installation of large concentrating solar power plants. Assuming the installation of parabolic trough plants, it is found that the identified suitable areas could accommodate plants with a nominal capacity of 510.3 GW in the Northern Cape, 25.3 GW in the Free State, 10.5GW in the Western Cape and 1.6GW in the Eastern Cape, which gives a total potential nominal capacity of 547.6 GW for the whole country. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.