Regional Overview
Our region of north Africa and the middle east has a high solar potential, where the average global horizontal irradiation (that is the total amount of shortwave radiation received from on a horizontal surface) is around 2100 kWh/m2 per year.
Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) on North Africa and the Middle East. Source: globalsolaratlas.info
According to the last International Energy Agency (IEA) report, by the end of 2015, an installed capacity of 435.9 GWth, corresponding to a total of 622.7 million square meters of collector area, was in operation worldwide. The MENA countries had a share of 6.7 GWth, where the pioneering Arab countries in the field are Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia and Morocco. The most commonly used technology in the region is the FPC thermosiphon, naturally circulated systems.
And concerning market penetration, the following diagram shows the diffusion of solar water heaters in our member states for the year 2015.
Source: Arab Future Energy Index – Energy Efficiency (AFEX EE) 2015, RCREEE
Palestine has the lead in market penetration rates, while Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia follow along. The gulf countries, Algeria, Libya, Sudan and Yemen have very negligible SWH market penetration.
Data based on:
Solar Water Heat Worldwide – Global Market Development and Trends in 2016; Werner Weiss, Monika Spörk-Dür, Franz Mauthner; Edition 2017.
Arab Future Energy Index – Energy Efficiency (AFEX EE) 2015, RCREEE