On October 18, 2024, Léo CLAUZEL defended his thesis entitled “ Contribution of desert dust to the estimation of the photovoltaic resource in West Africa during the dry season”.

His work contributed to NETWAT-WP3 (Building Reliable Decision-Making Tools to Manage Power Grids), and provided a better understanding of how interactions between desert aerosols and radiation or clouds modify the solar resource.

Léo set up the WRF-CHIMERE coupled model, and studied two mineral dust events typical of the dry season.
His simulations showed́ that taking desert aerosols into account reduces GHI estimation errors by 50-75% and surface temperature by 9-10%. Dust decreases GHI on average by 96-116 W/m2 and increases surface temperature by 1.3-2.1°C. However, this result conceals a marked diurnal cycle, with diurnal cooling reaching up to -0.5°C.
These simulations made it possible to analyze the interactions between aerosol, cloud and radiation, revealing that the direct effect of desert aerosols outweighs the indirect effect, contributing almost entirely to the change in GHI and temperature.

Delphine RIU (Pr. INP-Grenoble) chaired the jury. The two reviewers were Céline MARI (DR-CNRS, LAERO) and Philippe BLANC (DR-MINES). The examiners were Juan CUESTA (MdC UPEC, LISA) and the thesis supervisors (Sandrine ANQUETIN (DR-CNRS) and Christophe LAVAYSSE (DR-IRD)).

Access to the manuscript (in French)

Clauzel, L., S. Anquetin, C. Lavaysse, G. Bergametti, C. Bouet, G. Siour, R. Lapere, B. Marticorena, and J. Thomas, 2025, Solar radiation estimation in West Africa : impact of dust conditions during 2021 dry season, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-997-2025

Clauzel L., S. Anquetin, C. Lavaysse, G. Tremoy, D. Raynaud, 2024, West African operational daily solar forecast errors and their link with meteorological conditions, Renewable Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2024.120101

RMSD of simulated GHI for WRF-CHIMERE configurations with (top) direct effect, (middle) indirect effect, and (bottom) direct and indirect effects. The calculation is performed́ with reference to the WRF-only simulation, for the Bodélé case period (from March 28, 2021 at 00 UTC to April 1, 2021 at 23 UTC, left) and the Atlas-Bodélé case period (from March 17, 2022 at 00 UTC to March 22, 2022 at 23 UTC, right), considering only daytime values. The red star indicates the location of the Zagtouli solar power plant. (Clauzel, L., 2024, PhD Thesis)

Updated on 26 mai 2025