During the mid-noughties I thought that solar thermal power was going to become in the dominant form of renewable energy in the medium term - failing to foresee just how dramatic the price and performance improvements for solar PV and energy storage would be over the following decade.
Back then a vision called Desertec promised cheap, clean north African solar power providing Europe with a healthy slice of its energy needs (and reducing dependence on Russian gas as a side benefit).
The vision slowly faded as it become clearer that Europe could be largely self-sufficient in renewable energy and that building the grid interconnects between Africa and Europe was going to take along time to eventuate. The organisation pivoting in 2013 to focus more on supplying local power demand, particularly in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
There have been some concerns voiced about the 2.25 GW Tunisian project at Tunur in particular, which still aims to export power to Europe in spite of local power shortages by 2018, via a HVDC interconnect to Malta.
Noor 1, the first phase of the Moroccan plant, has already surpassed expectations in terms of the amount of energy it has produced. ... Noor 2 will be similar to the first phase, but Noor 3 will experiment with a different design. Instead of ranks of mirrors it will capture and store the Sun’s energy with a single large tower, which is thought to be more efficient. Seven thousand flat mirrors surrounding the tower will all track and reflect the sun’s rays towards a receiver at the top, requiring much less space than existing arrangement of mirrors. Molten salts filling the interior of the tower will capture and store heat directly, doing away with the need for hot oil.
Similar systems are already used in South Africa, Spain and a few sites in the US, such as California’s Mojave desert and Nevada. But at 86ft (26m) tall, Ouarzazate’s recently erected structure is the highest of its kind in the world. Other plants in Morocco are already underway. Next year construction will begin at two sites in the south-west, near Laayoune and Boujdour, with plants near Tata and Midelt to follow.
The success of these plants in Morocco – and those in South Africa - may encourage other African countries to turn to solar power. South Africa is already one of the world’s top 10 producers of solar power and Rwanda is home to east Africa’s first solar plant, which opened in 2014. Large plants are being planned for Ghana and Uganda.
I have been following the "Desertec" story for a long time; the ambitious idea of building large scale solar plants in North Africa, to produce energy to be shipped to Europe.
Desertec always left me perplexed. With its huge plants and a price tag of some 400 b$, I always though that it was like trying to go from a raft to a transatlantic liner without ever having built anything in between. In short, a modern equivalent of the ill-fated "Great Eastern" transatlantic liner, built in mid 19th century and way too big for its times. So, I was not surprised to read, recently, that the project is in trouble (see also here).
Not that the basic idea of the Desertec project is wrong. Northern Africa receives plenty of sunlight and it has large, empty spaces that could be profitably used to harness this energy to produce electric power. But that wasn't enough to make such a large project economically sound. The first problem was the collapse of the prices of photovoltaic panels. That undercut the original idea of the project that was to rely on the use of solar concentrating power. Then, with such low prices, it made sense to build PV plants directly in Europe. Even for a lower solar irradiation, one would still avoid the huge costs of the infrastructure needed for bringing electric power from North Africa.
It is a beguiling idea - harvest sunshine, and a little wind, from the empty deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, and use it to produce clean power for the region and for Europe.
Desertec, a group based in Germany with heavyweight commercial backers including Siemens and Deutsche Bank, says the scheme would also bring the regions around the Mediterranean closer together, while providing jobs and stability for the countries in the south.
It has chosen Morocco, which is embarking on its own ambitious solar programme, for its first "reference" project - a plant meant to show that its grand vision is feasible.
Desertec expects to see the first electricity flowing through undersea cables from Morocco to Spain as early as 2014.
But its stated goal - using desert power to supply up to 100% of local needs and up to 15% of European demand by 2050 - has attracted critics who question whether such a vision is possible, or even necessary.
No-one doubts the physical potential of the desert to generate renewable power.
According to a study by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a state agency that provided data used by Desertec, less than 1% of suitable land in the North Africa and the Middle East would be needed to cover the current electricity consumption of the region, as well as Europe.
Many countries with intense sunshine also have large tracts of uninhabited land.
But creating a power network presents a series of formidable problems, from nomads stealing solar components to the technological and political challenges of transporting and delivering electricity over such a vast area.
Paul Van Son, the Desertec Industrial Initiative's chief executive, stresses that his group has no detailed blueprint, but aims instead to create the broad conditions for a solar network to be developed.
"There is nothing which is unrealistic," he says.
"It's already happening today, there are installations in the deserts, solar installations, wind parks - it all works.
"There are electrical grids from Tunisia, Algeria for instance and Morocco to Spain and Europe. It's possible to transport electricity over long, long distances."
Desertec points to a pair of cables already installed between Morocco and Spain - though for now these are carrying power from north to south.
It says it will work closely with Medgrid, a French scheme to enable the construction of a Mediterranean transmission system.
A significant piece of good news for the ambitious €400 billion (Dh1.87 trillion, US $509 billion) scheme came in April, when one of its members, Germany's Solar Millennium, said its 150 MW Kuraymat project in Egypt was nearing completion and could serve as a template for other north African solar farms.
Then came the bad news with Algeria’s decision last month not to participate in the Desertec Industrial Initiative, which was formally launched last year by a group of 12 European companies, mostly from Germany. Last Monday (August 30), Paul van Son, the director of the group, said he was now also concerned about declining German government support for the project.
“We were surprised that after the project received strong support at the beginning, it wasn’t even mentioned in [Germany’s] energy concept draft,” he told Dow Jones on the sidelines of a renewable energy conference in Frankfurt. Mr. van Son said the Desertec partners needed subsidies, possibly through feed-in tariffs, to guarantee electricity prices that would cover the generation and transmission costs.
To push the project forward, Desertec was wooing potential investors from the Middle East and north Africa, he said.
“We are in intensive talks with companies in the MENA region, which we are trying to win as new shareholders,” Mr van Son told Reuters, without naming any candidates.
In March, the US company First Solar joined Desertec as its first member from outside Europe.
Earlier that month, Mr. van Son had said five companies from Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, France and Italy had agreed to join the consortium. But no confirmatory announcements have followed.
The group’s other existing partners include Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, RWE, E.ON, HSH Nordbank and Siemens from Germany, the Swiss ABB, Italy’s Enel, Spain’s Red Electrica and the French group Saint-Gobain.
Mr. van Son also said on Monday that a planned Moroccan pilot project still lacked investors.
“We’re in the very early stages, the letter-writing stage,” he told Bloomberg. In July, Desertec announced its plan for the small Moroccan solar facility as a way to test the feasibility of a large-scale concentrating solar-power project with a proposed capacity of up to 1,000mw. That would be 10 times the capacity of the US$600 million (Dh2.2bn) Shams-1 solar plant that Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Government’s advanced energy company, is building in the emirate’s southern desert.
Europe will import its first solar-generated electricity from North Africa within the next five years, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said in an interview on Sunday.
The European Union is backing projects to turn the plentiful sunlight in the Sahara desert into electricity for power-hungry Europe, a scheme it hopes will help meet its target of deriving 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 2020.
"I think some models starting in the next 5 years will bring some hundreds of megawatts to the European market," Oettinger told Reuters after a meeting with energy ministers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.
He said those initial volumes would come from small pilot projects, but the amount of electricity would go up into the thousands of megawatts as projects including the 400 billion euro Desertec solar scheme come on stream.
"Desertec as a whole is a vision for the next 20 to 40 years with investment of hundreds of billions of euros," said Oettinger. "To integrate a bigger percentage of renewables, solar and wind, needs time."
The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe.
First Solar will participate in the massive Desertec project, one more stop along their plan toward world domination.
The Arizona-based manufacturer of cadmium telluride solar modules will provide know-how on how to build large-scale solar power plants. The Desertec initiative will attempt to build renewable power plants in the deserts of North Africa that will supply a significant amount of power to the Europe, the Middle East and North Africa by 2050. Photovoltaics, solar thermal, wind, and other technologies, along with experiments in carbon capture, will likely ultimately play a role in the project.
Siemens is one of the big drivers. Right now, everything is in the planning stages, but Desertec is shaping up to be one of the largest construction projects ever attempted. (More on utility scale solar parks will be one of the subjects at the Solar Summit 2010 taking place in Arizona later this month.)
Like SunPower, Suntech Power Holdings and other large solar manufacturers, First Solar hopes to get a growing portion of its revenue from building power plants and selling power. In this situation, a module maker effectively becomes its own customer. First Solar has already signed on to build a 2 megawatt solar power plant in Inner Mongolia and has projects completed and underway in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates.
Ten of Europe's largest energy and engineering firms today joined forces to launch a new lobby group committed to advancing plans for a pan-European Supergrid capable of supporting new renewable energy capacity.
The Friends of the Supergrid (FOSG) group brings together renewable energy developers, producers of advanced transmission cables, engineering firms and grid operators.
The founding members include 3E, AREVA T&D, DEME Blue Energy, Elia, Hochtief Construction AG, Mainstream Renewable Power, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Prysmian Cables & Systems, Siemens and Visser & Smit Marine Contracting.
Speaking at the launch of the new group, Mainstream Renewable Power's chief executive Dr Eddie O'Connor said the coalition of companies could play a key role in promoting an idea that will be essential to the long-term decarbonisation of Europe's economies.
"The UK government has recently shown its commitment to large-scale offshore wind by announcing the development of up to 50GW by 2020," he said. "We now need to integrate this huge resource into Europe to enable the open trade of electricity between member states. The FOSG is uniquely placed to influence policy-makers towards creating the Supergrid and, ultimately, change how we generate, transmit and consume electricity for generations to come."
Experts have long argued that the development of a Supergrid will make it far easier for grid operators to manage intermittent energy supplies from renewable resources such as offshore wind farms, allowing them to export excess power when winds are good and import energy from other regions when poor winds result in less power.
The concept is now climbing up the political agenda after nine EU member states, including the UK and Germany, signed up to the N orth Seas Countries Offshore Grid Initiative (NSCOGI) late last year, agreeing to co-operate on the development of a grid that will allow them to share energy produced by new offshore wind farms.
Meanwhile, in Germany the Destertec consortium of firms is working on plans for a similar supergrid designed to import power from solar farms in North Africa to much of continental Europe.
Imagine an interconnected, pan-Asian electricity and natural gas Infrastructure.
The system would distribute electricity from solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy from Australia to China. Natural gas and hydro would fill the gaps. The vision is big. So is climate change.
In Europe, the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative proposes that a series of concentrating solar power plants in North Africa could power the region and export surplus electricity to Europe.
A similar network built in Asia would generate energy market efficiencies, spur innovation and increase energy security.
Following this path, Asia could end up with networked electricity and natural gas backbone that would serve the region into the 22nd Century.
The plan involves connecting Asia through a 6,000-8,000 kilometer electricity and natural gas transmission system stretching from southern Australia to Japan and South Korea.
Australian surplus concentrating solar power, geothermal, wind and wave energy, along with natural gas, would flow northward to Indonesia. There, it would be joined by Indonesia's surplus natural gas, geothermal and hydro power.
The combined energy supplies, joined by Malaysian hydro, southeast Asian biomass and Mekong wind, would then be transmitted to China, Japan and South Korea through a 'non-discriminatory, common-carrier' infrastructure operated like a toll road.
Further north, China's Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang provinces could contribute solar and wind energy. In the East Asian Sea, networked offshore wind farms and wave and tide machines would contribute more energy. Regional natural gas and hydro energy supplies would 'load balance' the entire system in a hemispheric network managed as an highly-efficient whole.
Competitively accessible, non-discriminatory, low-emission energy generated and delivered through a regionally-interconnected, Pan-Asian energy infrastructure represents a market-based solution to climate change.
Stewart made the closing address at the Clean Energy Expo Asia Conference 2009, describing the Desertec Asia plan. Part 1 is embedded below - click on the links for Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
A giant step has been made in what will be the world’s largest renewable energy project. While previously just a grand vision for the production of clean energy in the Saharan desert, the project now has a core group of backers and a signed agreement between 12 companies wanting to move forward with the $555 billion renewable energy belt. The 12 collaborators signed articles of association last week for the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII), which will work to bring more companies and groups on board as well as focus on regulations and conditions to get the project successfully completed and generating pure power from the sun.
The DESERTEC Foundation vision is to install 100 GW of solar power throughout Northern Africa, with the goal of supplying 15% of Europe’s energy demand with clean renewable power. So far a number of blue chip and powerful companies have signed on to be part of the project, including ABB, ABENGOA Solar, Cevital, DESERTEC Foundation, Deutsche Bank, E.ON, HSH Nordbank, MAN Solar Millennium, Munich Re, M+W Zander, RWE, SCHOTT Solar, and Siemens. The project will link multiple solar concentrating facilities around coastal North Africa and transmit most of the renewable energy through high-voltage DC lines to Europe. Additionally, desalination plants will be coupled with the solar concentrating plants to bring fresh water to people in Africa.
German reinsurer Munich Re (MUVGn.DE), facing billions of euros in claims for damage caused by climate change in coming years, is seeking to drum up support for an ambitious plan to build solar parks in the Sahara desert.
The reinsurer wants backing from other leading European companies for a feasibility study on generating a significant proportion of Europe's power needs in northern Africa -- at a cost potentially running into hundreds of billions of euros.
The project is the brainchild the Club of Rome, an association of social leaders who aim to foster sustainable development best known for its 1972 book 'Limits to Growth'.
Munich Re has invited several companies, including Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), Siemens (SIEGn.DE), E.ON (EONGn.DE) and RWE (RWEG.DE), to meet on July 13 to agree on a joint project, said a foundation organised by members of the Club of Rome.
"We have approached Munich Re to get industrial companies on board and Munich Re organised the meeting with the other companies," said a spokesman for the Desertec foundation, which is fostering the idea to generate solar power in Africa.
The 20 companies and Desertec aim to sign a memorandum of understanding to found the Desertec Industrial Initiative which would commission studies on possible projects, he said.
A first power station with a capacity of 2 gigawatts in Tunisia with power lines to Italy would take five years to build once it gets regulatory approval, the spokesman said.
A possible long-term project could be a 100 gigawatt solar thermal power station in northern Africa and the Middle East. It could be finalised by 2050 with power lines connecting it to central Europe and would cost an estimated 400 billion euros ($555.8 billion), he said.
A solar power station with 100 gigawatt in western Europe -- where the sun shines for fewer hours and far less intensely than in the Sahara -- would be able to supply some 28 million homes, according to the German association of power generators.
Imagine an Asian electricity grid anchored by China at one end and Australia on the other. The grid would carry and distribute hemispheric solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy. The vision is big. But so's the problem of climate change.
Start by looking at Asia's energy status quo. Fossil fuels dominate. Renewable energy development is sporadic. National grids aren't interconnected. Carbon costs aren't applied. Vision is lacking.
Now, apply sensible economic and technological rationalisation. What pops out is a networked Asian electricity backbone in which efficiency, price and environmental-friendliness count. A regional grid would offer a frictionless exchange of kilowatthours akin to the frictionless exchange of electrons the Internet has brought.
The plan would entail building a 10,000-kilometer long electricity transmission system stretching from Beijing to the Great Australian Bight. Australian concentrating solar power, geothermal, wind and wave energy would flow northward. It would be joined by the harnessed geothermal power of Indonesia's volcanoes. This torrent of Austro-Indonesian low emission energy would then wend its way across a wind farm-lined South China Sea to China. Or the transmission system could go by land through a Southeast Asia regional High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power line paralleling existing power lines in Malaysia, Thailand and Laos.
Southeast Asian natural gas and Laotian and Vietnamese hydro power plants could provide 'load balancing' in a regional grid dominated by renewables. Even China's Three Gorges Dam might find a role as hemispheric provider of peaking power. That's because using hydro (and natural gas) for baseload power in an electricity system dominated by renewables makes about as much sense as employing trapeze artists to shovel gravel.
Tibetan and southern Mongolian deserts could be developed for concentrating solar power, wind and geothermal energy. Windfarms stretching from Shenzen to Shanghai off China's east coast could similarly provide huge amounts of power.
The Guardian had a good article a couple of years ago about CSP in North Africa supplying power to Europe which I dubbed "Deserts of Gold".
Obviously this institutional knowledge hasn't been passed down as the latest version of this story is far weaker and confuses solar thermal power with solar PV. Still, good to see the idea is gaining momentum - £37bn plan to power EU with the Saharan sun.
Vast farms of solar panels in the Sahara could provide clean electricity for the whole of Europe, according to EU scientists working on a plan to pool the region's renewable energy.
Harnessing the power of the desert sun is at the centre of an ambitious scheme to build a €45bn (£35.7bn) European supergrid that would allow countries across the continent to share electricity from abundant green sources such as wind energy in the UK and Denmark, and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy.
The idea is gaining political support in Europe, with Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, recently backing the north African solar plan.
Because the sunlight is more intense, solar photovoltaic panels in north Africa could generate up to three times the electricity compared with similar panels in northern Europe.
Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy explained how electricity produced in solar farms in Africa, each generating around 50-200 megawatts of power, could be fed thousands of miles to European countries. The proposed grid would use high-voltage direct current (DC) transmission lines, which lose less energy over distance than conventional alternating current (AC) lines.
The idea of developing solar farms in the Mediterranean region and north Africa was given a boost by Sarkozy earlier this month when he highlighted solar farms in north Africa as central to the work of his newly formed Mediterranean Union.
Depending on the size of the grid, building the necessary high-voltage lines across Europe could cost up to €1bn a year every year till 2050, but Jaeger-Walden pointed out that the figure was small when compared to a recent prediction by the International Energy Agency that the world needs to invest more than $45tn (£22.5tn) in energy systems over the next 30 years.
Posts
