Assessment of renewable energy potential in Kwazulu-Natal province, South Africa

Abstract

In order to overcome the electricity demand in the country and in its effort to reduce the greenhouse gas emission and climate change, South African (SA) government is encouraging research in the field of renewable energy (RE). Higher educational institutions in each province are involve in different renewable energy projects found by provincial governments and private companies. This paper presents an evaluation of RE potential sources in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). It is found that KZN province has a RE potential exploitable of about 45 GW divided into 53.63 % of global normal irradiance (GHI), 23.28 % of direct normal irradiance (DNI), 13.52 % of wind energy, 9.51 % of geothermal and 0.06 % of biomass energy that can be converted into electricity, ocean energy and hydropower excluded. With the results exposed in this article, further investigations can be done to determine the net electrical energy that can be produced from those sources for design of RE systems and energy harvesting as well as the appropriate areas to install RE systems.