Interannual and spatial variability of solar radiation energy potential in Kenya using Meteosat satellite

•Investigation of spatial and inter-annual variability of GHI and DNI from METEOSAT data in Kenya.•GHI potential is high as compared to DNI.•Low spatial and interannual GHI variability as compared to DNI is recorded.•GHI measurement for 5 years can describe climatology as compared to 7 years for DNI.

Kenya is faced with a rising demand in electricity resulting from a rapidly growing economy and an increasing population. Being a tropical country, lying astride the equator, solar energy is one of the readily available renewable energy resource options to meet this need. Unfortunately, there is still very low adoption of solar systems in the country which could be majorly attributed to lack of adequate solar resource assessment. Besides, past studies on this area in Kenya only focused on the available amount of solar resource leaving out the issue of variability. To bridge this gap, the temporal and spatial variability of global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal Irradiance (DNI) is analyzed using 19-year long (1995-2013) Meteosat satellite dataset. GHI interannual variability is low in most parts of the country but DNI has a clearly higher variability except a few locations in the East and Northern desert. Low spatial variability for GHI was recorded for locations within 1225 km2 while DNI variability was double that of GHI. The results offer readers a quick reference of variability of solar resource at different locations in Kenya which is useful in guiding measurement requirements and consequently in promoting deployment of solar systems.