MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mega German project to power Europe with the Sahara sun

The project could be providing 15% of Europe’s power demand by 2050

Plans to provide 15% of Europe’s power from solar power generators in the Sahara by 2050 have moved a step forward with the formation of a consortium of companies. The German-led Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) has signed up 12 companies including E.ON, RWE, ABB, Siemens and Deutsche Bank, as well as solar specialists ABENGOA Solar, SCHOTT Solar and MAN Solar Millennium.

The 400 billion US dollars project plans to install concentrated solar power (CSP) systems, which use mirrors to concentrate solar rays to heat a fluid that in turn drives a turbine to generate electricity, across the Sahara. The CSP plants would be linked to the European mainland via power lines across the Mediterranean Sea.

The 12 consortium partners will now start groundwork for the potential 100 GW of solar power plants spread across the Middle East and North Africa. The DII will be working on demonstration projects and creating the necessary policy framework for cross-border infrastructure.

European energy industry veteran Paul van Son, who has headed Deutsche Essent and Econcern in the past and is currently chair of the European Federation of Energy Traders and the Energy 4All Foundation, has been appointed CEO of DII.

“The DESERTEC vision [is] a pivotal part of the transition to a sustainable energy supply in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe,” says van Son. “Now the time has come to turn this vision into reality.”

That ambition will require establishing a sound basis for investment, he says, and the DII will initially focus on the economic side of the implementation of the Desertec plans. The consortium, which will be based in Munich, hopes to start supplying Europe with electricity by 2015.

Currently there are some small initiatives across Spain and parts of North Africa, but the scale of the Desertec initiative will surpass any other comparable projects.

The initiative has gained the support of the German government of Angela Merkel, who has already expressed a desire to offset a dependence on Russian gas supplies.

A number of North African countries have also expressed a strong desire to join the project, the company says, utilising their main sustainable natural resource - the Sun.