The deserts of Africa to generate power for Europe? - exactly what the Desertec project set out to accomplish in 10 years and now it looks, five years.
This is based around a series of huge concentrating thermal plants in the Sahara Desert and elsewhere around North Africa and the Middle East, with transmission lines bringing the power north into Europe. The figures have been impressive : by 2050, the projects are capable of generating up to 470,000 megawatts of electricity; only 0.02 percent of the land area in the region will be needed for all of the solar plants; in fact, only one percent of the entire world's desert area, if covered by solar power plants, could power, well, everything.
Tall order?? What about transmission losses across large distances? The power loss over high-voltage direct-current transmission lines is about 4 to 5 percent per 1,000kilometers of transmission; the costs associated with such losses, however, are made up by the remarkably high insolation (solar radiation energy) in the North Africa region, according to Desertec.
Costa are high and yes, the area is politically unstable, but given the target of achieving 20 percent of its power from renewables, Europe is squaring its shoulders.
The first pilot project around Morocco and surrounding cities may well take off soon.
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