Facts about Ethiopia

The sun is the source of life on earth. It is the prodigious inflow of solar energy in the form of sunshine and radiation that produces, through photosynthesis, all the food, fuel and free oxygen upon which life on earth depends.

The total amount of solar energy reaching the earth is about 7X1017KW hr. per year, more than 30,000 times as much as is used in all man-made devices. Unlike the conventional sources of energy, solar energy is inexhaustible; it is also the least exploited.

Solar radiation has a direct effect on the day-to-day life of mankind. The availability of adequate sunshine in the crucial phase of the growing season is decisive in crop production.

But sunshine is intermittent in availability and variable in direction. In the technologically developed world, this effect of variability of sunshine is compensated by temperature modification devices in the operation of heating or cooling system.

But in countries like Ethiopia such technological capability is lacking and is too expensive to acquire.

One possibility of development is the acquisition of more adequate knowledge of climate parameters and a greater ability to predict changes so that adjustments can be made through earlier or later sowing.

Moreover, the understanding of the duration and intensity of sunshine would enable farmers to select crops that are better suited to a given environment and, in this way, an acceptable yield in most years would have greater assurance.

More information on solar radiation intensity would also contribute to a greater understanding of water loss through evaporation.

Solar radiation is, however, an important source of energy. In the present world, energy plays a pivotal role in technological and social development. But the cost of conventional fuel is rising and its availability is shrinking day by day.

Realizing this, man has been attempting for some time to make use of the sun’s radiant energy. Obviously his success has been limited as the economic utilization of solar energy requires a level of technological development that has not yet been attained.

But the world is witnessing very rapid technological advances. Within a few years it is likely that the cost of solar energy tapped directly will become competitive with that of the conventional sources of energy.

When this technology becomes global, what will matter then will be the availability of sunshine and large areas of land where solar power generating stations can be built. Ethiopia, for that matter Africa, is naturally abundantly endowed with both the prodigious energy of the sun and the necessary expanse of land.

Generally, northern Africa including Ethiopia, is the area where there is the maximum intensity and duration of sunshine over the globe, and as much as 4,000 bright sunshine hours are receive in a year.

Most parts of Ethiopia receive over 7 hours of bright sunshine daily, and in the south eastern, northern and north eastern lowlands, it reaches 10 to 12 hours duration.

It is only during the summer rainy season in the highlands of central and south western Ethiopia, when there is much cloud cover, that the daily duration of sunshine hours is less than 5 hours.

Ethiopia receives 7.4 to 7.6 KWh/m2 of solar radiation per day. This abundant solar energy of the order of 7-8 KWh/m2, received daily for over 6-8 hours day in most parts of Ethiopia for the major portion of the year, could be utilized for economic and social development.

The primary step to exploitation begins with adequate knowledge of the various elements of these resources. Unlike other resources, climate requires a long period of observation and accumulation of data to analyse and interpret patterns and variabilities.

To derive a detailed solar radiation climatology for a region, as well as to estimate its solar energy potential, extensive radiation data of high accuracy at a large number of stations covering all major climatic zones of the region is essential.

The successful application of solar energy to increase the capacity of this nation and to support its growing population depends on an increasing knowledge of the amount of available solar radiation.

The four maps showing the mean monthly hours of bright sunshine in January, April, July and October are representative of the relatively high and low sun periods over Ethiopia. These maps can give a general impression of the distribution of sunshine and solar radiation potential in Ethiopia.

(Source: National Atlas of Ethiopia)