Study on Renewable Energy Resources, Oman - authority for ...

Renewable Energy Resources in Oman
Fig. 5.11 Application of solar thermal power plants and photovoltaic systems as
function of the installed capacity and the annual global solar insolation, Ref /16/.
Examples of applications in
• large cities connected to national grid
• in rural off grid large cities with a number of diesel units for production
of electricity
• in rural small villages and in isolated settlements
• in desert areas
Solar energy can in principle be used for desalination in two ways, with PV electricity
for a reverse osmosis process and in a number of ways where heat is used
to evaporate the water in a distillation process. Another heat source can be used
in this respect for example from conventional power production, a steam cycle or
a diesel engine. Further data is needed to analyse this.
Electricity generation
The technical potential for electricity generation by grid connected PV systems is
determined by the area suitable for installation of PV cells (e.g. on buildings,
parking areas etc). Assuming that 50% of the houses in Oman are suitable for
installation of PV cells and the area available at each house is 20 m 2 in average
the total potential area for installation of PV cells on houses is 4,250,000 m 2 .
This area of PV cells corresponds to a potential annual electricity generation of
750 GWh/year and an installed capacity of 420 MW, or about 15% of the total
capacity today. On top of that PV can be located in the desert. Typical capacity
per m 2 of land is about 30 Wp (Watt peak) corresponding to 30 MWp per km 2 .
In the long term perspective the theoretical potential for electricity generation by
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems in Oman is huge. CSP plants with
storage for supply of electricity as conventional power plants will require 1 km 2
of land use for 10 MW capacity. Theoretically it is possible to supply Oman's
present consumption of 13,100 GWh by utilising about 280 km 2 of the desert for
solar collectors, corresponding to 0.1 % of the area of the country.
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