Page 323 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

296 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Solar Photovoltaic
During the last decade, global solar PV installations have been growing
exponentially with the cumulative installed capacity rising at an annual average
rate of 49% (IEA, 2013). This growth has been catalyzed by significant
reductions in capital costs, ongoing technological advances, and government
incentive schemes. Table 15.3 indicates that according to the LTES, solar PV is
expected to contribute only 2% of the total electricity required by Mauritius in
2025. This figure seems very low in view of the promising solar potential of the
country. According to long-term data from the Mauritius Meteorological
Services, the island receives an average daily solar insolation of 5.6 kWh/m 2
and between 2350 and 2850 h of sunshine annually depending on location
(MMS, 2015). The underestimation of solar PV potential can be justified by
several factors. One relates to the absence of accurate ground radiometric
measurement data at the granular spatial resolution needed to build a compre-
hensive solar radiation database for the country. Such a resource is instrumental
in efficient PV planning, design, and implementation. Therefore establishing an
accurate solar map should be a priority. To address this deficiency, the United
Nations Development Programme is funding a project to deploy a network of
solar radiationemeasuring equipment in Mauritius and enable the development
of a solar resource map in the next few years. The high upfront investment is
another factor that limits the wide-scale deployment of solar PV projects. In
this context, the government has already worked out a feed-in tariff scheme
to support small- and medium-scale solar PV generation. A first large-scale
PV farm of 15.2 MW p capacity, located on the west coast of Mauritius, was
connected to the grid in February 2014 to add up to 4 MW p capacity under the
small-scale distributed generation project. PV module prices have dropped
substantially over the years and cost less than USD 1 per watt of electricity
generated in 2015. Considering these prices, associated components, and typical
warranties, PV systems may be able to successfully compete with fossil fuels in
sunny regions with high electricity prices without subsidies (Kurtz et al., 2016).
Studies have reported that if the decreasing trend in PV prices can be sustained,
parity can be achieved in most regions in the United States and China as well as
Southern Europe before 2020 (Munoz et al., 2014) and other regions before
2030 (Solar Industry, 2012). Thus Mauritius appears to have the potential to
cost-effectively increase its electricity production through the expansion of PV
farms in areas where maximum solar radiation is available.

Solar Thermal
Although Mauritius enjoys a subtropical climate, households use hot water
extensively, mainly for bathing and cooking purposes. Until the 1990’s, water
was heated mainly by electric water heaters, which were among the most
highly rated electric appliances in homes. These have gradually been replaced
by LPG or SWHs. In 2011, 59.4% and 12.1% households were using LPG