Abstract:
Nowadays, the daily conversations at summits
and conferences are mainly about energy, climate change,
and environmental issues. Fossil fuels are the main causes
of global warming due to the release of greenhouse gases
(GHG) into the atmosphere, leading to a change in the
climate. Niger, as an emerging nation, has significant
energy potential that is weakly exploited due to socioeconomic factors. Multi-criteria analysis and satellite
imagery were utilized to generate the potential
photovoltaic (PV) energy maps. Three sites were selected
as the most suitable places: 1) Site A with 22.5% or
12.154km2
; Site B with 53.33% or 28.82 km2
; and Site C
with 10.23% or 5.53 km2
. The average annual energy
potential of the selected sites was found to be 45.13 GWh.
This energy potential was based on the: 1) calculated
average annual solar radiation per unit surface area; 2)
total suitable areas; and 3) efficiency of the PV panels.
