Analyzing Alternative Uses of Photovoltaic Water Pumping System for Small Scale Irrigation and rural electrification (Case Study- West Hararghe Zone, Medhicho Kebele, Ethiopia)

Abstract

gain from different sources, but some of these sources are not environmentally friend, expensive and difficult to transport; like fossil fuel. Using solar energy is the best option to solve this problem. Ethiopia has huge potential for solar energy because it is located near the equator with an average daily solar radiation of 5.25kWh/m2.Many researches are done on Photovoltaic water pumping technology which used for irrigation. But in Ethiopia, irrigation water is not required during the whole season. In Ethiopia irrigation season is starting from October up to May and in this season products has high value. The objective of this thesis is analyzing alternatively using solar PV energy and solves some energy problem in rural area at non-irrigating season using battery for store energy. Battery storage is one of the essential tools used for operating appliance. Especially battery is very required for the people who live in rural area for appliance during summer like LED light, fridge while during winter season no need of storage battery the pump is work directly to store water for purpose of irrigation. The people living in grid connected system use electric powered pumping or diesel generator for pumping water, but people living in rural off-grid area can't get electric powered pump. Therefore this problem would be solved when they use solar photovoltaic pumping. In this work Madhicho is study area of this thesis and it located at 9.14° latitude and 40.75° longitude. In this thesis analysis of PV water pump by using PVsyst or RETScreen Expert. Most of the time the major problem of solar PV water pumping system technology has been the wastage of energy by made the system in idle manner without using energy which is only use for target of specific purpose and time but in this research when no need of irrigation time, the systems are required batteries to store the sun‟s energy for use during summer periods. Total quantity of water required for irrigation is 145125liter per day the Pump power that can able to pump water from well to storage tank is 20kw the number of PV module to satisfy pump power is 55 and total energy produced from solar panel 22kw.The initial cost of solar PV pump is 92,426.125USD and this cost would be obtained after three to five year. Solar PV water pumping system can be reliably used at where absence of continuous local grid available where as solar PV and battery storage need is critical