€400bn energy plan to harness African sun
It's decision day on a chain of solar generators across the desert that could supply a quarter of Europe's power
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Concentrating solar thermal plants use an array of mirrors to capture and focus sunlight, which can then heat water and power turbines
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The world's most ambitious green energy project is about to take shape. It is a plan for a chain of mammoth sun-powered energy plants in the deserts of North Africa to supply power to Europe's homes and factories by the end of the next decade.
In a few days' time a consortium of 20 German firms will meet in Munich to hammer out plans for funding the giant €400bn (£343bn) project, named Desertec. The scheme is being backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and several German industry household names including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and the energy companies RWE and E.ON. The Munich meeting will also involve Italian and Spanish energy concerns, as well as representatives from the Arab League and the Club of Rome think-tank.
Energy experts have calculated that Desertec could meet at least 15 per cent of Europe's needs, and be up and running by 2019. By 2050, they estimate the contribution could be between 20 and 25 per cent. Although no host countries have been named, Desertec envisages a string of solar-thermal plants across North Africa's desert. The plants would use mirrors to focus the sun's rays, which would be used to heat water to power steam turbines. The process is cheaper and more efficient than the usual form of solar power, which uses photovoltaic cells to convert the sun's rays into electricity.
The project also envisages setting up a new super grid of high-voltage transmission lines from the Mahgreb desert to Europe. Hans Müller-Steinhagen, of German Aerospace, has researched the project for the German government. He said that although the idea behind the scheme had been around for several years, investors had been deterred by the high costs of setting up the infrastructure.
Professor Müller-Steinhagen said that similar projects have been operating in the American West for years, but these had failed to gain the appropriate recognition. "Solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, but people lost interest in them because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," he said.
Until now, projects of Desertec's scale have failed to get off the ground because of the huge problems involved in delivering electricity to consumers hundreds of miles away. The main stumbling block is that the further electricity is transported, the more is lost. However, Siemens claims that it has come up with a solution. Alfons Benziger, a spokesman for the engineering giant which has been involved in the construction of major hydro-power plants in India and China, said: "We have developed so-called high-voltage direct current energy transmission. This can transport energy over long distances without heavy losses. We use the process at the power plants in India and China."
Andree Böhling, an energy expert for Greenpeace Germany, has heaped praise on Desertec: "The initiative is one of the most intelligent answers to the world's environmental and industrial problems," he said. Munich Re, meanwhile, which insures major insurance companies across the globe, was persuaded to invest in the project after seeing a steady rise in the number of claims the company had to meet as a result of climate-change-induced damage.
Yet Germany's largest solar energy company, SolarWorld, argues that North Africa is too risky a location. "Building solar power plants in politically unstable countries opens you to the same kind of dependency as the situation with oil," said Frank Asbeck, the firm's managing director.
Other critics claim that by singling out comparatively poor North African countries as a location for a sophisticated European solar energy project amounts to a form of "solar imperialism". Lars Josefsson, the head of the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, has also rejected the idea because of a potential risk of terrorist attacks. However Desertec supporters, including the German conservative politician Friedbert Pflüger, argue that a far greater threat is posed by the prospect of nuclear power plants being subjected to such attacks. He points out that a number of nuclear reactors are scheduled to be built in North Africa – Egypt alone plans to build five. Mr Pflüger claims that the risk of politically motivated Russian-style energy stoppages by host countries could be avoided if the solar grid has enough supply channels.
But he warns that politics is likely to be the main stumbling block. "It's not Europe that will decide whether the desert can be used as an energy resource, but the countries of North Africa," he said last week. "So far these countries have either not been involved in the dialogue at all or only at a very limited level."
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Comments
Btw, why is the UK not involved?
UK will plan, plan and then plan some more.
We need action...
"Although no host countries have been named, Desertec envisages a string of solar-thermal plants across North Africa's desert." This sentence suggests a smack of arrogance - have they even asked any countries yet if they are willing to host plants? If so, why are they coy to name them?
It's in the public domain and has been for some years. I'm sure the governments of these countries are perfectly well aware of the value of their land assets, and where they are.
By combining this with CSP on the European side, great economies in transmission can be achieved, as well as having a system not dependent on sovereign foreign governments.
This decision is irresponsible, IMO, and smells of political pressure from large corporations.
The reporter indicates that HVDC is somehow 'new'. It isn't. I was a junior electrical engineer on the Nelson river project in Canada in 1969 where the first HVDC went in - that's 40 years ago! There's no point in arguing about the technology - it's long been sorted. Siemens just has to make it sound as if it's new. It's not.
The point with SCP (and I reckon the Fresnel option has the rosiest future) is that it can be turned on and off almost instantaneously, and can provide 24 hour electricity with heat storage. there's no limit to the amount of land you can cover with mirrors to generate electricity (half a percent of all deserts the world over is enough to satisfy ALL mankind's energy needs), and much redundancy can be built into the grid. If one country decides to withold its energy producing capability, then others will readily step up to the late.
The only snag with all this is that Gordon Brown thinks it's a jolly good idea (which it is), so that'll be the kiss of death in this country.
There is also the security of supply risk which will have to be addressed by building in massive redundancy which also increases the cost of SCP.
This may well be a good idea but there are still many uncertainties to consider before we can be sure that this is a winner.
There are all sorts of costs bandied about, and they are much manipulated to suit the argument in question. Basically SCP power stations costs the same as any other power station. The furnace that provides the heat is cheap to manufacture for fossil fuels, but expensive for SCP as acres of mirrors don't come with a wave of the fairy godmother's wand. Against that you have to reckon with the extraction of a fossil fuel and its transportation to the power station, and of course the attendant CO2 emissions. For SCP the energy is free, and transports itself there unasked, courtesy of the Sun.
Don't believe all the costings you see. there's a lot of skulduggery going on with many multinationals trying to protect their vesetd interests.
Whilst I agree that Costings can be distorted, The Economist did an article a few weeks back and, in summary from memory, thought that SCP was slightly more expensive than Fission (U3O8 at $100 per lb, presently $50 per lb) and thus a fair bit more than Gas (including, I assume, transport costs etc.). This does not mean that we do not use SCP - it would be a useful addition to the mix and the HVDC network would have external benefits for making other types of Renewables more economically viable than they are at present. But it does mean that we are in the early stages of this Project and need to see the full HVDC costs and an estimate of the external benefits of same. This is especially so since The Economist was very clear that Heat Storage dramatically increase the cost of SCP Plant - but it MAY still be of benefit because of the externalities even if the Plant only produced 50% of the time in any particular time-zone.
Yeah just like what happens with the oil producing countries now, I mean, it's not like they could form a cartel or anything (OSEC anyone).
If they go ahead and do this then they need to think very carefully.
As clearly shown with OPEC, it is not enough to assume that if they diversify into multiple countries that that will protect them from blackmail.
Obviously, some kind of ongoing payment (in money or energy or both) would be required for the use of the land. However, they would be wise to set clear terms whereby the facilities are owned by the countries and/or corporations that build them and that they have exclusive rights to the land for an agreed period of time.
If a country agreeing to these terms attempted to renegotiate the price AFTER the plant was built therefore when they think they have the west by the short and curlies the demand should simply be ignored. If this lead to an attempt to nationalize or subvert the energy supply then the west would be well within its moral rights to consider it an act of war and treat it accordingly.
That might sound harsh but western corporations and governments are not charities and no one would force any country to agree to these terms.
if african nations don't like the terms then they are welcome to build their own solar plants (and therefore take all the risk and cost involved onto themselves) and try sell to the west directly.
Better to move factories to Africa - next to the power source. Whichever method is used, the outcome will be that the existing tyrannical dictatorships of North Africa will be even more bolstered and buttressed by the European Countries and consumers - and the man and woman in the street in these countries will not benefit in any way, least of all regarding freedom and justice.
Apart from that - it is a great idea. And it could be done in Botswana to feed the South African demand also.
Mr Alex Weir
Gaborone and Harare
One product that springs to mind is aluminium. Providing electricity for a plant is an electrical engineer's nightmare as it's load is very 'unbalanced' as the phase angle is so high. To get round this many plants have their own power generation. Putting it near the coast on the edge of the Sahara would make an enormous amount of sense.
Presumably one could persuade Pilkington to do the same with its glass, and then you could make all the mirrors (uses aluminium for the silvering) and aluminium supports locally for the SCP plants.
One other point people seem to have missed, is that if a better technology is found in future years, then the SCP plants can be switched to atmospheric CO2 scrubbers (see article in New Scientist) or dismantled completely. It would leave no residual problems as do most other power stations.
Please note that this has nothing to do with photovoltaics (PV), which are normally seen as a way of generating electricity at a local rather than central level.
As for grids, there are no DC grids worthy of the name in the world at the moment. They are all AC. These experience at least three to four times as much losses as DC. We use AC because the technology to convert AC to different voltages was the first to arrive on the scene just after the first world war. The technologies to convert DC to DC at different voltages is much younger at just a few decades old.
The first (and less efficient, more expensive) US Solar Energy Generation System was built in 1984 at Daggett, in the Mojave desert. The Yanks use expensive parabolic mirrors that focus on a miles-long glass water-filled pipe instead of simple flat mirrors focused on a single heat-capturing target on a tower. You dummies probably never even heard of the French plant before you splurged on your bigger-is-better dinosaurs that were obsolete before they were built.
The name of the game is making something that works at a large enough scale, at a cheap enough rate to capture the energy wanted. If that involves using Marmite or raspberry flavoured blancmange as the heat collecting fluid, so be it (but I doubt it).
Interestingly, the new Spanish solar tower systems seem to experience a loss of performance with wind-flutter of the reflectors, and personally I don't much like a furnace 50m in the air that can be seen for kilometers - particularly when it's a good deal brighter than the sun itself.
This method is already up and running in Spain, maybe you don't need to buy up land in
Africa ?
This is not "imperialism" at all. Just as with oil, African countries participating will doubtless be paid a percentage for extraction of what is their natural resource and for the lease of their land. It's a win-win deal for those with the wit to participate. The African countries would never be able to extract this solar power without Western technology and will in effect be being paid without having to do anything themselves.
The huge construction work should also provide thousands of jobs in Africa as well as spreading valuable solar know how to the region.
On top of this slowing global warming is in North Africa's urgent interest as the region is expected to suffer from severe water shortages in future caused by both its own population explosion and yes heating of the planet through CO2 emissions.
Those of you who see "imperialism" in global commerce and the like actually hinder Africa rather than aid her. No surprise the po faced Swedes have rejecting the idea. Swedes like to moralise to the world from the comfort of their well watered northern green land, but the reality is that to progress Africa needs to be plugged into the global economy and for countries in more southern latitudes than Sweden to be saved, CO2 emissions need curtailing.
Australia should put some money into this project so we can have our technicians pick up on the technology. We can't send electricity to Europe but we have massive bauxite deposits and lots of hot sunny deserts. I guess we'd be happy to make all the aluminium you need, and glass.