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Lake Nasser is the second largest man-made lake in the world, extending from the southern part of Egypt to the northern part of Sudan. It is the water bank of Egypt, containing more than 120 billion cubic meters of fresh and renewable water. The lake is surrounded by empty flat desert and the nominal annual insolation is more than 2500kWh/m(2). This fact puts the lake, in certain classification criteria, on top among the most suitable areas worldwide for solar hydrogen production.

The distance between Lake Nasser to the west of Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea is about 900 km into the western desert of Egypt. This consists of hat empty desert without geographical or geological barriers. Hydrogen could be delivered easily through the Mediterranean Sea through direct pipelines to many places in Europe.

The present study concerns the solar energy potential around the lake from ground stations and a Meteosat artificial satellite, and the testing of different types of solar cells and photovoltaic (PV) panels under the real outdoor conditions of the hot desert climate. Also, the best sites around the lake for PV systems and field constructions has been selected on the basis of photographs of remote-sensing observed by the artificial satellite Landsat. (C) 1997 International Association for Hydrogen Energy.