Why Should Cyprus Exploit the Solar Power to Match its Peak Demand?

Conference: UPEC 2011 - 46th International Universities' Power Engineering Conference
09/05/2011 - 09/08/2011 at Soest, Germany

Proceedings: UPEC 2011

Pages: 6Language: englishTyp: PDF

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Authors:
Solyali, Davut; Redfern, Miles A. (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, UK)

Abstract:
Cyprus lies in a sunny belt. The amount of global solar radiation received on a horizontal surface with average weather conditions is 1725 kWh/m2 per year. The amount and duration of sunshine is among the highest in the world and it has given birth to mass utilization of passive solar water heaters. Cypriot manufacturers produce more than 30,000m2 of collectors per year and more than 9% of the total electricity consumption has been replaced by solar energy. Despite the sunshine duration and the proof of concept by using passive solar heaters, Cyprus's electricity generation continues to be reliant on an imported oil. There are efforts, put forward by the Cyprus goverments, to enable users to sell their electrcity to the grid at advantageous feed-in tariffs. However, due to the high levelized costs of the renewable energy systems, utilization of these systems are not gaining momentum. Various studies have identified electricity consumption is multivariate. It is affected by variables such as relative humidity, cloudiness, solar radiation, wind speed, electricity price, gross domestic product growth, etc. Nevertheless, Cyprus's solar irradiation and ambient air temperature has been found to play the most important role in controlling the electricity load demand. This paper presents the characteristic of the electricity demand of Cyprus and explores its relationship with ambient air temperature and solar irradiance. Thermal comfort levels for Cyprus have been identified. By demonstrating the correlation between the solar irradiance and the mean ambient temperature of Cyprus, this study provides reasons to exploit the solar power to match Cyprus's peak demand.