Case study of Cyprus: wind energy or solar power?

Renewable energy sources, which emit no or little greenhouse gasses, can help in reducing the dependency on finite reserves of fossil fuels and lower overall green house gas emissions. Following on successes in addressing the threats to the atmosphere and in order to achieve stabilized emissions against a background of growth in energy use, governments generally have set out policies and goals for the development of renewable energy. Cyprus is a European country whose energy generation is fully reliant on imported oil. The challenge has arisen to determine the best solution to tackle supply needs together with the environmental need to reduce green house gas emissions and become less reliant of fossil fuels. This paper reports recent research to identify and quantify the most economically feasible and technically favourable renewable energy resource for Cyprus. The paper provides an insight into available resources because of Cyprus's geographical location and their capital costs if they are to be exploited. Therefore, it sets a common base to enable economical comparison of renewable resources.