Senegal Solar Panel Module

Senegal's energy sector is increasingly reliant on solar power, making it essential to assess its long-term viability under changing climate conditions. This study evaluates future solar energy production in Senegal up to 2050, focusing on eight operational solar plants: Bokhol, Sakal, Malicounda, Kahone, Ten Merina, Mekhe, Ndiass, and Kael.

This study focuses on eight (8) solar plants, mainly located in western Senegal (Bokhol, Sakal, Malicounda, Kahone, Ten Merina, Mekhe, Ndiass, and Kael), with particular emphasis on Ten Merina, where the observation data used were collected. Ten Merina is located in the department of Tivaoune, the region of Thies (the second most populated region).

They found that Senegal experiences significant variability in solar resources over time and across different locations, depending on the year and specific site conditions. Niang et al. (2023) evaluated the seasonal performance of six solar power plants in Senegal, namely Bokhol, Sakal, Malicounda, Kahone, Ten Merina, and Mekhe.

The seasonal cycle of solar production over Senegal (Ten Merina) is largely influenced by solar radiation, with peak production occurring in March-April and the lowest production during the rainy season (July-September). This demonstrates the dependence of solar production on climatic conditions.

Despite the higher resolution and detailed regional climate information provided by the CORDEX-CORE datasets, biases are noticed. These results suggest a bias correction to better estimate the future changes in solar energy production in Senegal. A bias correction is performed using the method described in Eq. 5 (Fig. 4b).

In Senegal, the country is set to achieve an additional installed capacity of 100 MW of solar, 100 MW of wind, 50 MW of biomass, and 50 MW of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) by 2030 .