German consortium plans $500m Sahara Desert power project

German consortium plans $500m Sahara Desert power project
By Hamed Shobiye
Published: Tuesday, 30 Jun 2009
A consortium of German companies, including Siemens, has announced an ambitious $500m project to power homes and factories in Europe from the Sahara Desert.
Deutsche Welle Radio reported on its website that the project would harness the sun and space of the desert for Europe’s energy needs.
The report said that although the plan had been on the drawing board for sometime, German insurance giant, Munich Re, has decided to bring it to fruition by fixing a meeting for July 13, 2009 in Munich, Germany to launch the Desertec concept.
The report said that Siemens and 19 other major German companies such as Deutsche Bank, utility companies RWE and E.ON were part of the consortium working on the project.
It stated that some other unnamed German, Italian and Spanish companies as well as a representative of the German government, the Arab League and the Club of Rome think tank had been invited to next month’s meeting.
Experts have estimated that the project would provide 15 per cent of Europe’s energy needs, the report said, adding that it might be ready in 10 years.
A Munich Re official, Mr. Alexander Mohanty, said, “The project is very ambitious but our aim is to have something of a road map for Desertec within the next two or three years.” The project foresees a string of solar-thermal power plants to be linked together somewhere in the deserts of North Africa, though no host countries have been named so far.
The report said the plants would use mirrors to focus the energy from the sun’s rays to heat a special type of oil, and use the heat for steam to power turbines. It stated that the process was cheaper than the usual method of using photovoltaic cells, a common form of solar power, which converts the sun‘s energy directly into electricity.
“You only need an area of 300 kilometers by 300 kilometers to provide enough energy for the whole world,” said Alfons Benzinger of Siemens.
However, Siemens said it would take care of concerns about transporting the energy to Europe.
According to Berzinger, Siemens has developed a system of “high-voltage direct current transmission of energy, which can transport energy over long distances and without heavy losses. We have practised this already, for instance with hydro-power plants in China and India.” There are, however, unresolved issues such as the host country, financing, safety of the plant, length of time for actualising the project and global acceptance of the project.
The report said the plan had shown that a tiny part of Africa could power the entire world.