Published on Monday, Dec 12 2011 by David Sanderson
Solar panels located in the Sahara Desert could be used to provide the power needed by the Middle East and Europe.
A hybrid power station - which uses solar and natural gas to generate electricity - is already in place in an area of uninhabited desert called Kuraymat near the city of Beni Suef.
The giant solar panels are each six metres tall and boast a combined surface area of 130,000sq metres. The Egyptian government is pushing for the green energy from them to be used to produce more of the electricity for the Middle East and Europe.
German particle physicist Gerhard Knies drew a strong case for the use of desert solar panels to satisfy electricity demands back in 1986 following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He revealed that the deserts located across the globe receive more solar energy than is needed by humans for a whole year.
The physicist strongly believes that harmful fuels such as coal and gas could be stamped out and replaced by renewable energy.
Knies’s research led to a German initiative called Desertec, which is striving to produce 15 per cent of the electricity required by Europe by 2050 by using a huge network of wind and solar farms located across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
These arrays would then connect to continental Europe via current transmission cables in order to help power parts of Europe. Whilst Desertec does not come cheap - estimates have put the cost of the ambitious project at around £342 billion - support has grown for it over the last few years.
Many of Germany’s largest corporations are keen to push the use of
solar power in the country - it already has the highest level of solar adoption and development in Europe and is keen to build on that.
Back in 2009, a consortium of global firms such as E.ON and Siemens, created the Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii) and the initiative has grown in strength as interest increases. Last month, the International Energy Agency warned that ‘irreversible climate change’ was on the horizon if carbon emissions were not reduced over the next five years.
The Dii has now confirmed that the first phase of Desertec is to be rolled out in Morocco in 2012, with a giant 500MW solar farm stretching across 12sq km built close to the city of Ouarzazate.
The Guardian newspaper reported that Paul van Son, Dii's CEO, said, “It's all systems go in Morocco.” Other countries including Tunisia and Algeria have been having discussions about joining Desertec whilst countries such as Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia are tipped to jump onto the bandwagon come 2020, when the next phase of the project begins. Desertec is then expected to become financially ‘self-sustaining’ by 2035.
German MEP Angelika Niebler, was reported by the newspaper as saying, “Energy is going to be a bigger priority for the EU in coming years than agriculture has been in the past and Desertec will surely feature.”
Read more about the Desertec plans at the
Desertec website.
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