Afghanistan: Solar assets, electricity production, and rural energy factors
2011
Burns, Richard K.
Satellite-based solar insolation models and data collected in 2004–05 show large solar assets for the southern and western regions, dry and high reflective zones like deserts, plateaus and upland pasture hillocks. For Afghanistan, both lower latitude plus high-plateau terrain result in excellent solar assets. Afghanistan has landform class of high alpine close-spaced mountains and basin zones with extreme dryness and low rainfall, and high air turbidity. Elevations and air turbidity (evidenced by wind maps, not covered here) suggest high renewable resources. The infrastructure of present electric sector is based upon small hydro, diesel thermal, in place in pre-2001, but now 61% of electrical power is imported from northern neighbor countries. However, total electricity output, today, is about 2× that of 2006 due to success of this import strategy. Trends from 2006 onwards show increases of about 25% per annum. 78% of population is rural, use traditional fuels, and have a very low ownership of electricity appliances. Rural settlements lack all 3 components (generation/transmission/local grids). Finally, we note the country's serious water quality issues and report on small scale solar thermal using evacuated collectors and continuous flow principles in order to produce clean water by hygienics of pasteurization.
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