What are the major challenges for Solar in Deserts?

​It is no doubt that solar is one of the most feasible alternative energy options available to mankind. The price of solar is going down and its efficiency is also improving with time, making it even more feasible option for all of us.

​If anybody asks you, what could be the ideal place for the large-scale solar installation. One of your answers could be “the deserts”. The obvious reason for choosing this place as these are considered the wastelands and installing solar panels could be the most optimum use of the land and area.
The desert climatic conditions pose unique challenges to each component of the solar power system which need to be addressed proactively.

The Deserts

​Deserts are dry regions with very less or no precipitation (< 250 mm of rainfall throughout the year) supporting few flora and fauna. The deserts are defined by their dryness and it can be hot like the Sahara Desert in Africa or cold like Antarctica or the Gobi Desert. It is because of these factors the deserts are very scarcely populated. 

"The one-third (33%) of the total land mass consists of deserts, covering more than 45 million square kilometres of the area."

The deserts offer advantages to the Solar

The deserts are not suitable for agriculture and living for humans. Therefore, the most optimum use of the deserts is the solar power installation. It offers the following advantages to support this point of view:

1. The availability of the vast and shade less space, letting solar radiations to fall directly on the panels without any obstruction. Thus, deserts make the best possible utilization of the solar radiations.
2. The solar power installation does not disturb the ecosystem or has a very minimal impact on the existing flora and fauna as they are already scarce.
3. The deserts often receive a high amount of the solar radiations of more than 7 KW/m² in some places making it a fantastic place for the solar power installation
4. These deserts are very large in area and are in the periphery of many countries and states, offering the opportunity to work collectively by designing & constructing the system on a large area, achieving the economies of scale and consume the power on the proportionate basis of the amount of investment done.

By looking at the above advantages, the solar seems to be a lucrative green energy for the deserts. But still, we are not witnessing considerable growth in this area. Because along with these advantages, the deserts offer many challenges and the constraints to the solar power installation which are limiting its potential.

The challenges

• Adverse climatic conditions: The extreme temperature in the deserts makes it difficult to transport the required material to the site and build the infrastructure thus increasing the project completion time and escalating the cost of the project. Moreover, the convention that the power increases with the increase in temperature is WRONG. The extreme temperature, particularly in the hot deserts, degrades the performance of the solar panel, resulting in the less output. The water (scarce & costly commodity in the deserts) and the high-performance cooling fans are employed to minimize the effect of the heat on the solar components like solar charge controller, inverter etc., increasing the cost of the investment and affecting its financial feasibility. Moreover, the harsh climatic conditions pose the serious health risk to the staff.
• The maintenance is costly: The sandstorms are quite frequent in the deserts and can cause damage to the solar panels and can also get inside the other components of the system, affecting their performance. The high-velocity sandstorm can erode and scratch the anti-reflective coating of the panels. Moreover, the sand deposited on the panels significantly degrades their performance. In order to check & control all these factors the real time continuous monitoring system, deployment of the cleaning staff and the security personals are required, increasing the overall maintenance cost of the project.
• The power transmission is expensive: The actual consumers are the people living in the urban areas far from the site of electricity generation, the deserts. The construction and the erection of the huge transmission towers, supporting the thick wires is a challenge as it is very difficult to lay the foundation on the deserts. Also, the long distance between the site of electricity generation and the place of consumption increases the likelihood of transmission losses, degrading the efficiency of the solar system and escalating the transmission cost of the project.
• The project developers are limited: The most of the investors and the project developers prefer to invest in that location where the place of the power generation is near to the population (consumers), saving the cost of transportation and cost of transmission. For this good reason, the most area of the deserts is left unused.
• Risk of Vandalize, stealing and stripping: The location of the most of the deserts are close to the countries with political unrest, increases the chances of vandalizing, stealing and stripping of the solar components. Moreover, these places pose life risk to the manpower deployed at the site. These factors increase the risk premium that adds to the overall investment

Conclusion:

There are some sizeable projects installed in the deserts and many more are under planning. The some of them are as follows:

• Solar power plants in Mojave deserts, California USA

• Solar plant in Chilean desert
• Solar power in Morocco
• Solar power plant in Saudi Arabia

The project developers are trying to achieve the economies of scale by increasing the size of the project. However, the installation, operation, maintenance of the solar photo-voltaics in the deserts are not that easy than it seems and is quite challenging.

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