TY - JOUR 
A1 - Rubio Aliaga, Álvaro
AU - Sánchez Lozano, Juan Miguel
AU - García Cascales, María Socorro
AU - Benhamou, Mabrouk
AU - Molina García, Ángel
T1 - GIS based solar resource analysis for irrigation purposes: Rural areas comparison under groundwater scarcity conditions
Y1 - 2016
SN - 0927-0248
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10317/9408
AB - During the past decade, most governments have been promoting energy efficiency programs and the integration of renewable energy sources into the majority of energy uses. Among the different sectors, the agricultural sector is becoming a more active participant to reduce fossil fuel dependence and improve environmental sustainability. Indeed, agriculture usually combines both a high energy demand and water problems associated with over-exploited aquifers, providing great potential and remarkable opportunities to change the energy mix and maximize the use and integration of natural resources in a rational way. Considering this framework, the present paper describes and compares the solar resource integration and its effects on agricultural pumping purposes in two Mediterranean countries, Spain and Morocco, with significant differences in terms of energy mix, climatic conditions and energy policies. As a novel contribution in this paper, we propose the use of GIS to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of the solar resource through real data of both locations, as well as to study groundwater resources. With this aim, two technical proposals for irrigation purposes are compared in terms of environmental benefits, CO2 emissions and agriculture energy model changes: diesel equipment and photovoltaic system. Results based on solar radiation resource, pumping requirements and aquifer depth are included in the paper.
KW - Proyectos de Ingeniería
KW - Solar energy resource
KW - Applicability solar energy
KW - Solar water pumping
KW - Sustainable rural development
KW - Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
KW - Photovoltaic systems
KW - 2106.01 Energía Solar
LA - eng
PB - Elsevier
ER -