Pilot Low-Cost Concentrating Solar Power Systems Deployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study of Implementation Challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews the deployment of low-cost concentrating solar power systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting implementation challenges, especially in tracking system efficiency, and discusses current research directions for affordable solar tracking technologies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of low-cost solar tracking systems and discusses specific challenges faced in deploying pilot solar power plants in Africa.

Findings

Tracking system failures increase operational energy costs.

Current research aims to develop low-cost, energy-efficient heliostat tracking solutions.

Pilot projects show promise but face technical and economic hurdles.

Abstract

Electricity is one of the most crucial resources that drives any given nation's growth and development. The latest Sustainable Development Goals report indicates Africa still has a high deficit in electricity generation. Concentrating solar power seems to be a potential option to fill the deficit. That is because most of the components of concentrating solar power plants are readily available on the African market at affordable prices, and there are qualified local persons to build the plants. Pilot micro-concentrating solar power plants have been implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa and have shown promising results that could be expanded and leveraged for large-scale electricity generation. An assessment of a pilot concentrating solar power plant in the sub-region noticed one noteworthy obstacle that is the failure of the tracking system to reduce the operating energy cost of running the tracking control system and improve the multifaceted heliostat focusing behavior. This paper highlights the energy situation and the current development in concentrating solar power technology research in Africa. The paper also presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art solar tracking systems for central receiver systems to illustrate the current direction of research regarding the design of low-cost tracking systems in terms of computational complexity, energy consumption, and heliostat alignment accuracy.