Sustainable energy solutions for the agricultural world

Abstract EN

The majority of Algerian lands are arid and semi arid, containing an important number of agricultural farms that can be divided in two types; the first one is connected to grid and the second type is located in isolated zones.

Both of these types of farms suffer of many problems due to lack of electrification.

Firstly in the isolated sites, they use diesel engines which are limited principally to irrigation and house lighting for few hours a day because of high fuel costs and engine maintenance.

Secondly for the farms connected to grid, they tend to suffer from the quality of electric energy due to very important voltage drops in the summer periods where the demand for electricity becomes high due to pumping water and air conditioning.

This high energy consumption is reflected in the electricity bills which become a burden to the farmers.

As Algeria is one of the countries that, has sunny days during all year, solar energy can contribute to solve these problems by feeding farms with electricity and giving them some advantages.

To perform this study, we present the analysis of the farm’s loads, followed by the development of sizing systems where two farms (isolated and grid connected) are chosen for this study.

Finally an implementation of solar stations is proposed.