Abstract

About 78% to 80% of power energy imported from neighboring countries in Afghanistan. Roughly 70% of the population don’t have access to electricity, and 90% of those without electricity live in rural areas. reduction of energy resources, increasing use of fossil fuels and unrefined coal for home heating, cooking is a major problem in the world and even a serious challenge to environmental pollution specially for whom who lives in Afghanistan. In this research we have introduce new sources of energy, which is renewable energy, as an alternative to fossil energy. Nowadays, due to the gradual reduction of fossil energy sources and increase of air pollution and environmental damages has forced scientists to look for a sustainable and clean energy to be cheap and economically and be friendly with environment. This research shows that renewable energy is more appropriate compared to the fossil fuels in order to decrease air pollution and would be economically for people.

1. Introduction

The energy crisis is a challenge in the world and scientists are looking to find and introduce access to cheap and clean energy sources. On the other hand, environmental pollution is a serious threat for the climate because most industrialized countries have using greenhouse gas emissions. In Afghanistan the most exploited renewable resources are hydroelectric, photovoltaic (PV) and wind ¹. Fortunately, there are plenty of sunny days and renewable energy sources in Afghanistan. In this article, research has been done on the use of renewable energy in Afghanistan how much has been used and what is the extent of renewable energy production capacity. Therefore, renewable energy sources include hydro energy, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy and biomass energy.

Due to the different climate in different parts of Afghanistan and despite the mountainous areas, the vast plains are favorable for the use of renewable energy, in this article, these points have been studied technically and it has been clarified that in which parts of Afghanistan the type of renewable energy is appropriate and has more efficiency until use its national and international facilities in future. Gradually, the dependence of energy on neighboring countries will decrease. The geography and climate of Afghanistan is favorable for renewable energy production, according to a study by the national renewable energy laboratory of the united states ².

The Renewable Energy Roadmap for Afghanistan is developed to realize the vision and intent of the Renewable Energy Policy (RENP) for Afghanistan that sets a target of deploying 4500 – 5000 MW of renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2032 and envisions a transition from donor grant-funded RE projects to a fully-private sector led industry by 2032 ³.

2. Renewable Energy Sources

There are many sources of renewable energy which have been using as energy for daily activity in Afghanistan.

People have been using water power since the beginning of civilization. Along with the burning wood for light and heating, water power was used as the main source for generating mechanical driving power ⁴. Power generation in Afghanistan is mainly hydro based and this slightly increased in the past. Thermal generation has reduced in the recent years and the total local generation has remained constant in the range of 800 to 1000 GW-hrs ⁵. Afghanistan, with its snow – capped mountains, some of which are always under snow, is source of watery rivers which flow into the neighboring countries through a long route with high valleys. The total potential in Afghanistan is 124500MW, but it will also become an exporter of electricity. Research shows that the use of hydropower in Afghanistan is about 377MW and the feasible capacity of hydropower generation is up to 23000MW (large, medium and micro hydropower plants) ⁶.

Afghanistan annually has 75 to 80 billion cubic meters of surface water, of which only 25% to 30% of this water is used inside the Afghanistan for agriculture and energy production, and the remains without exploitation flow to the neighboring countries. The greatest source of energy in this country is hydroelectric power which provide about 50% of the its energy needs, about 10% comes from domestic hydroelectric power and 40% hydroelectric power imports from neighboring countries. Although, there are 17 hydropower in Afghanistan as shown in Table 1 so, most of electric power imported from its neighboring which is serious problem in energy sector in this country.

The sun is the biggest source of energy in our lives. The sun gives off enormous amounts of heat and light in all directions. Scientists say it will continue to shine for billions of years in the future ⁷. Sunlight energy is one of the energies that has enabled all living things to live on earth planet that comes from fusion energy in the sun that is obtained from joining of hydrogen atoms and converting to the helium atoms. Solar energy is one of the cleanest energies that has no destructive effect on the climate and decreased of the pollution. Sunlight is the largest source of energy in our planet, so that the energy radiated to the earth is 4.3 × 10²⁰ joul in one hour. In developed countries, solar panels are equipped with thermal sensors and a dynamic system so the solar panels always rotate toward the sun according the rotation of the sun, like a sunflower that is always facing the sun.

Solar energy constitutes the major portion of renewable energy potential in Afghanistan ⁸. A large part of the southern, western and northern regions of Afghanistan are deserts and barren plains, which usually have low rainfall and temperature in these areas reach up to 45 degrees Celsius during the summer. If we use even one percent of the mentioned areas, we will have 1036 MWh of energy per year according to the statistics of the ministry of energy and water. The total feasible potential of solar energy is about 222GW throughout the Afghanistan ⁸.

Afghanistan is one of the sunny dry countries that has an average 300 sunny days (10 months) in a year with a capacity of 2400 to 3500 hours of sunshine with a temperature of 15 to 45 degrees Celsius. Each 10m² area of solar panel produces an average 1KW of energy and in areas where air pollution is low and solar panels are exposed to vertical light its effectiveness will increase. The optical properties of materials in solar panels is a deep and complex subject of study covering many aspects of the interaction of radiation with materials ⁹.

Wind energy is one of the oldest sources of energy used by mankind ¹⁰. Wind energy generated by temperature changes over the earth’s surface has different velocities at different parts of the globe therefore, the wind speed the high levels of the atmosphere reaches more than 160km/h in Afghanistan. The first wind energy research device has been installed and put into operation in the white hotel area of Shakiban village, Zendajan district of Herat province. Afghanistan have thousands of narrow valleys, mountains and hills from which wind energy can be obtained. Afghanistan’s land can be divided into three main parts in terms of wind flow:

1) Badghis, Herat and Nimroz areas where the wind speed reaches up to 27m/s and in these areas strong wind turbines of 100kw and more should be used.

2) Areas with moderate wind currents, such as southern, eastern and central regions (Kandahar, Zabul, Urozgan, Bamyan, Daikundi, paktia and paktika) in which the wind speed is 9m/s and it is suitable to use wind turbines with power of (30 - 100)Kw.

3) Areas with weak wind currents such as the north, northeast and south (Balkh, Badakhshan, Takhar, Baghlan, Kundoz, Laghman and Jalalabad) where the wind speed in these areas reach up to 6m/s it is convenient to use from (1 - 30) Kw turbines.

In Afghanistan every 10m²areas has the capacity to produce 1Kw wind energy and the total capacity of wind energy production is up to 158Mw, including about 25Mw wind energy in government and private sectors are used in provinces (Takhar, Bamyan, Herat, Kandahar, Kabul) which are mostly installed at low voltage and have recently been used from wind energy in some parts of northern provinces for irrigation. It is remarkable that about 3% of wind energy is used in our country. Afghanistan’s feasible wind energy potential is about 63GW ¹¹.

Geothermal energy is the thermal energy stored in earth and it is underground heat. 99% of the earth Is hotter than 1000°C and only 1% is colder than 100°C. The average temperature at the earth surface is 14°C ¹². In Afghanistan research about the use of geothermal heat was started in 1964 by Russian and Afghan geologists. Because there are mountainous and has old and new tectonics, the presence of such energy is abundant in Hindukush areas, especially central Hindukush and Herat province areas. One of the symptoms of these points is the emergence of hot springs and people use for treatment of skin diseases. This energy is produced by the heating of magma in the ground, solid plates of fractures and under the pressure of hydro carbonate. Afghanistan’s hot water is composed of chloride bicarbonate, chloride, sulfide, sodium and a small number of elements such as Ge, Be, B, Fe, Ag, Zn, Pb, Ba, Li, Rb, Sr and Sc.. The Afghanistan national development strategy (ANDS), which has been studied the countries energy development issues has concluded that investing in geothermal energy in Afghanistan and it is important and necessary for living. Natural resources not only contribute to its industrial and agricultural development, but also have a good outlook for investors and energy producers. Of course, the use of geothermal energy is about 0.1%, which is mainly used for bathing and washing in different parts of the Afghanistan ¹. There are some geothermal resources which shows in Figure 1.

Biomass energy is another source which use of biomass as an energy resource show that it is approximately 13% of all primary energy used ¹³. Biomass is a fuel that is made from organic materials and is a renewable and sustainable source of electrical and other forms of energy. There are types of biomass energy:

1) Forests and forests wastes

2) Agricultural, horticultural and food industry products and wastes

3) Animal waste

4) Municipal and industrial wastewater

5) Industrial wastewater

6) Municipal solid wastes

Potential of power production from biomass resources in Afghanistan indicates that amounts of crop residues are 3092MW, animal manures 841MW and municipal solid waste 94MW so the total current use of biomass energy become 4027MW as shows in Table 4. The use of biomass energy accounts for a total of 15% Afghanistan’s energy resources (mostly used for heating and cooking predominantly in villages) specially forests and animal waste in rural areas where they are the main fuel material for them. Afghanistan’s feasible biomass energy potential is 20GW.

According to discussed different renewable energy resources in Afghanistan in Table 5 there are comparative potential resources which shows total energy capacity in Afghanistan.

Comparison of collected data shows that our Afghanistan has a high potential of renewable energy and we have used just 1.68% of this energy. The amount of geothermal energy consumption is so small that the percentage can be neglected and not much research has been done on the amount of geothermal energy because of the ongoing civil war. The comparative graph of renewable energy is shown in Figure 2.

3. Conclusion

Afghanistan have high potential for producing renewable energy specially in solar and hydro energy, but civil war caused to prevent extensive research in this area. This article shows that the most use of renewable energy belongs to the biomass especially in rural areas. Solar energy, hydro energy and wind energy respectively could be effective for decrees air pollution in Afghanistan. There are more Renewable energy resources and suggest to develop it and use for heating and cooking instead of coal and wood in order to decrees air pollution in Afghanistan.

References