Abstract
The world’s Sustainable Development Goals as clearly presented by the United Nations Department of economic and social affairs has zero hunger, and affordable clean energy. In the global struggle to meet both energy and sustainable agriculture, emerges the complex Energy-Water-Food (EWF) nexus. Kenya has initiated large-scale irrigation projects to ensure zero hunger. However, the energy required to run the pumps is very high, since diesel pumps and diesel generators are extensively used. This translates to high food production costs. In this research, optimized affordable clean energy systems required for irrigation were modeled and studied. Optimized hybrid wind and solar energy solutions for irrigation projects were presented. Five potential large-scale irrigation sites in Kenya were considered namely: Galana-Kulalu, Lotikipi, Rahole, Wei Wei, and Perkerra. The results showed that the energy requirement scenarios depended majorly on on-site conditions; crop water need cycles and rainfall patterns. Average Wind Speed to Global Horizontal Irradiance ratio influenced the structure of hybrid energy systems. Based on this ratio, longer cycle crops like sugarcane, maize, and cotton required systems with higher wind energy penetration compared to shorter cycle crops like radish and spinach. When this ratio changed in selected other irrigation sites, wind to solar power production was greater than one, and up to 500 times greater than one in sites with relatively stable sufficient wind like Lotikipi. Wind energy systems for areas with higher ratios contributed to smaller system structures as a result of a lower number of solar photovoltaic panels installed.
References
Ahmad, A., & Khan, S. (2017). Water and Energy Scarcity for Agriculture: Is Irrigation Modernization the Answer? Irrigation and Drainage. https://doi.org/10.1002/ird.2021
Cahn, M. D., & Johnson, L. F. (2017). New approaches to irrigation scheduling of vegetables. In Horticulturae (Vol. 3, Issue 2). https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae3020028
Chahartaghi, M., & Hedayatpour Jaloodar, M. (2019). Mathematical modeling of direct-coupled photovoltaic solar pump system for small-scale irrigation. Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization and Environmental Effects. https://doi.org/10.1080/15567036.2019.1685025
Chukalla, A. D., Krol, M. S., & Hoekstra, A. Y. (2017). Marginal cost curves for water footprint reduction in irrigated agriculture: Guiding a cost-effective reduction of crop water consumption to a permit or benchmark level. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(7). https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3507-2017
Cococcioni, M., D’Andrea, E., & Lazzerini, B. (2011). 24-Hour-ahead forecasting of energy production in solar PV systems. International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, ISDA, 1276–1281. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDA.2011.6121835
Gill, B. C., & Terry, A. D. (2016). ’Keeping salt on the farm’-Evaluation of an on-farm salinity management system in the Shepparton irrigation region of South-East Australia. Agricultural Water Management, 164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2015.10.014
Kane, S. N., Mishra, A., & Dutta, A. K. (2016). Preface: International Conference on Recent Trends in Physics (ICRTP 2016). Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 755(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/755/1/011001
Khan, Z. A., Imran, M., Altamimi, A., Diemuodeke, O. E., & Abdelatif, A. O. (2022). Assessment of wind and solar hybrid energy for agricultural applications in Sudan. Energies, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/en15010005
Kim, S. K., & Huh, J. H. (2020). Blockchain of carbon trading for UN sustainable development goals. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12104021
Lima, J. G. A., Sánchez, J. M., Piqueras, J. G., Sobrinho, J. E., Viana, P. C., & da S. Alves, A. (2020). Evapotranspiration of sorghum from the energy balance by METRIC and STSEB. Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agricola e Ambiental, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v24n1p24-30
Lu, Z., Zhao, Y., Wei, Y., Feng, Q., & Xie, J. (2019). Differences among evapotranspiration products affect water resources and ecosystem management in an Australian catchment. Remote Sensing, 11(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11080925
Muema, F. M., Home, P. G., & Raude, J. M. (2018). Application of benchmarking and principal component analysis in measuring performance of public irrigation schemes in Kenya. Agriculture (Switzerland), 8(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture8100162
Nilsson, A., Mentis, D., Korkovelos, A., & Otwani, J. (2021). A gis-based approach to estimate electricity requirements for small-scale groundwater irrigation. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10110780
Piccinni, G., Ko, J., Marek, T., & Leskovar, D. I. (2009). Crop coefficients specific to multiple phenological stages for evapotranspiration-based irrigation management of onion and spinach. HortScience, 44(2). https://doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.44.2.421
Silalertruksa, T., & Gheewala, S. H. (2018). Land-water-energy nexus of sugarcane production Ahmad, A., & Khan, S. (2017). Water and Energy Scarcity for Agriculture: Is Irrigation Modernization the Answer? Irrigation and Drainage. https://doi.org/10.1002/ird.2021
Cahn, M. D., & Johnson, L. F. (2017). New approaches to irrigation scheduling of vegetables. In Horticulturae (Vol. 3, Issue 2). https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae3020028
Chahartaghi, M., & Hedayatpour Jaloodar, M. (2019). Mathematical modeling of direct-coupled photovoltaic solar pump system for small-scale irrigation. Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization and Environmental Effects. https://doi.org/10.1080/15567036.2019.1685025
Chukalla, A. D., Krol, M. S., & Hoekstra, A. Y. (2017). Marginal cost curves for water footprint reduction in irrigated agriculture: Guiding a cost-effective reduction of crop water consumption to a permit or benchmark level. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(7). https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3507-2017
Cococcioni, M., D’Andrea, E., & Lazzerini, B. (2011). 24-Hour-ahead forecasting of energy production in solar PV systems. International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, ISDA, 1276–1281. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDA.2011.6121835
Gill, B. C., & Terry, A. D. (2016). ’Keeping salt on the farm’-Evaluation of an on-farm salinity management system in the Shepparton irrigation region of South-East Australia. Agricultural Water Management, 164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2015.10.014
Kane, S. N., Mishra, A., & Dutta, A. K. (2016). Preface: International Conference on Recent Trends in Physics (ICRTP 2016). Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 755(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/755/1/011001
Khan, Z. A., Imran, M., Altamimi, A., Diemuodeke, O. E., & Abdelatif, A. O. (2022). Assessment of wind and solar hybrid energy for agricultural applications in Sudan. Energies, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/en15010005
Kim, S. K., & Huh, J. H. (2020). Blockchain of carbon trading for UN sustainable development goals. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12104021
Lima, J. G. A., Sánchez, J. M., Piqueras, J. G., Sobrinho, J. E., Viana, P. C., & da S. Alves, A. (2020). Evapotranspiration of sorghum from the energy balance by METRIC and STSEB. Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agricola e Ambiental, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v24n1p24-30
Lu, Z., Zhao, Y., Wei, Y., Feng, Q., & Xie, J. (2019). Differences among evapotranspiration products affect water resources and ecosystem management in an Australian catchment. Remote Sensing, 11(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11080925
Muema, F. M., Home, P. G., & Raude, J. M. (2018). Application of benchmarking and principal component analysis in measuring performance of public irrigation schemes in Kenya. Agriculture (Switzerland), 8(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture8100162
Nilsson, A., Mentis, D., Korkovelos, A., & Otwani, J. (2021). A gis-based approach to estimate electricity requirements for small-scale groundwater irrigation. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10110780
Piccinni, G., Ko, J., Marek, T., & Leskovar, D. I. (2009). Crop coefficients specific to multiple phenological stages for evapotranspiration-based irrigation management of onion and spinach. HortScience, 44(2). https://doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.44.2.421
Silalertruksa, T., & Gheewala, S. H. (2018). Land-water-energy nexus of sugarcane production in Thailand. Journal of Cleaner Production. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.085
Ssenyimba, S., Kiggundu, N., & Banadda, N. (2020). Designing a solar and wind hybrid system for small-scale irrigation: A case study for Kalangala district in Uganda. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-020-0240-1
Strunz, K., Abbasi, E., & Huu, D. N. (2014). DC Microgrid for Wind and Solar Power Integration. Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, IEEE Journal Of, 2(1), 115–126. https://doi.org/10.1109/JESTPE.2013.2294738
Van Mechelen, C., Dutoit, T., & Hermy, M. (2015). Adapting green roof irrigation practices for a sustainable future: A review. In Sustainable C
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2022 Samson Soshyo, Michael Saulo, Lawrence Mukhongo