Solar power potential of Tanzania: Identifying CSP and PV hot spots through a GIS multicriteria decision making analysis

Abstract

More than one billion people are still living without access to electricity today. More than half of them are living in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is a noticeable shortage of energy related information in Africa, especially for renewable energies. Due to lacking studies and researches on integrating renewable energy technologies, the Tanzanian official generation expansion plan till 2035 showed high dependency on fossil fuel and a negligible role of renewables other than large hydropower. This study investigates the spatial suitability for large-scale solar power installations in Tanzania through using Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis combined with Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique. The study identifies six exclusion criteria to mask unsuitable areas. Then the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to determine the weights of seven identified ranking criteria. A final technology-specific suitability map categorizes all the non-excluded areas into most suitable, suitable, moderately suitable, and least suitable areas. The study also suggests four hot spots (i.e. specific recommended locations) for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations and four hot spots for Photovoltaics (PV) installations. The combined GIS-MCDM methodology presented in this paper is applicable to similar investigations in other regions and for evaluating the spatial suitability of other renewable energy technologies.