Turning the Sahara Desert into a major solar power producer seems like a no brainer on the surface. An enormous expanse of sparsely populated land with strong and steady sunshine should be the ideal place to build major solar installations. Take into account some main concerns, however, and the idea runs into problems. The Sahara is likely way too hot for photovoltaic solar cells to work efficiently. Transfer of the electricity produced to major metropolitan areas is complicated and extremely costly. The idea has been around for a while to send electricity produced by “solar thermal” plants to North African cities and even Europe using high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) cables. It is said that a collection area the size of Austria could supply the world. Now, as the Economist reports, there might be real interest and financing for just such an audacious project to get off the ground.
Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance [providing insurance to insurance companies] business, has invited 20 large companies (including Siemens, Germany’s engineering giant; power suppliers RWE and E.ON; and Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest) to join it in forming a consortium called Desertec. If all goes well, this will eventually build a legion of solar power stations in Africa and Arabia, and connect them to Europe.
The power stations in question will be “solar thermal”, rather than the better known sort relying on photovoltaic solar cells. In other words, instead of converting the sun’s rays directly into electricity using expensive semiconductor-grade silicon, they will use cheap metal mirrors to focus those rays either onto boilers that make steam to drive turbines, or onto containers of special low-melting-point salts that will store heat overnight, so that it is available to drive turbines during the hours of darkness.
While the idea seems feasible but unlikely, the consortium led by Munich Re took a small step toward reality at a meeting in Munich, Germany on July 13th. “A memorandum of understanding signed Monday….described Desertec as ‘a scientifically substantiated and economically feasible way of achieving’ the stated energy production goal. [The consortium] involves, among others, German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, power companies RWE AG and E.ON AG, reinsurer Munich Re AG, Deutsche Bank AG, and Swiss-based electrical engineering firm ABB.”
If the plan works, it would cost €400 billion ($560 billion) over the next 40 years and build enough solar power stations to satisfy 15% of European electricity needs in 2050, along with most of North Africa’s demand.
[Image from: www.inhabitat.com]
What the Sahara solar energy project could be like.
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