Sub‐Saharan Africa has long been beset with food insecurity and energy poverty. Expanding irrigated agriculture can help boost food production in the region, but this requires energy for accessing water, especially in groundwater‐fed irrigation. This paper compared economic performance of groundwater pumping for irrigation under two energy solutions: solar photovoltaic (PV) and diesel fuel. We estimated the life‐cycle costs of the power units of two pumping systems for a range of crop and irrigation method scenarios and mapped their relative cost‐effectiveness over cropland in sub‐Saharan Africa. As a renewable and clean energy source, solar energy has attracted much attention and there is keen interest in investing in solar PV to support the development of irrigated agriculture. Results of this study provide insights into the prospects of promoting solar irrigation in sub‐Saharan Africa.

中文翻译：

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太阳能或柴油：两种能源解决方案下撒哈拉以南非洲地下水灌溉成本的比较

撒哈拉以南非洲长期以来一直困扰于粮食不安全和能源贫困。扩大灌溉农业可以帮助提高该地区的粮食产量，但这需要能量来获取水，尤其是在地下水灌溉中。本文比较了两种能源解决方案下用于灌溉的地下水抽水的经济性能：太阳能光伏（PV）和柴油燃料。我们针对一系列作物和灌溉方法场景，估算了两个抽水系统的动力装置的生命周期成本，并绘制了撒哈拉以南非洲农田中相对成本效益的图表。作为可再生和清洁能源，太阳能已经引起了广泛关注，并且人们对投资太阳能光伏以支持灌溉农业的发展表现出了浓厚的兴趣。