Farming light to power tomorrow's world

Published: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:30:00

A €400 billion scheme to provide 15 per cent of Europe's energy via Saharan solar power by 2050 has officially been launched. Last month industrialist and investors from 14 companies met in Munich to formally found the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII). The plan is to pool resources and expertise to outfit north Africa with major renewable energy generation plants, making it a future powerhouse for the region and for Europe.

Eventually, the shareholders, including Deutsche Bank and Siemens, will compete commercially with each other, but now they are working together, to try and create the market for the scheme. The scheme has been developed to this point by the Desertec Foundation, which has been funded by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan and the German Association for the Club of Rome. "We have one really crucial ally, and that is climate change," Friedrich Fuhr, co-founder and director of the Desertec Foundation, told inthenews.co.uk.

"We are promoting one of the really rare global solutions that are on the market right now, where we actually can do something about it." The DII has more allies than just climate change – there is also widespread European support for the scheme. Professor Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Energy Agency (EEA), said: "Keeping climate change within manageable limits will require us to change fundamentally the way we use resources.

"I am therefore greatly encouraged to see initiatives such as Desertec, which brings together 14 firms in an unprecedented partnership, offering the promise of clean, secure energy and green jobs." The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) also welcomed the scheme, saying it would "keep a watching eye on its progress". Algons Benzinger, an energy sector press officer for DII-member Siemens, said the project was not a pipedream.

"When we look at it we have the technology to create the power in the desert," he said. "I think that it is possible."

Cost is traditionally a problem faced by new energy initiatives, but Mr Fuhr believes this need not be a barrier once the company builds momentum. "We can only bring the cost down by mass production, and mass production has to start - the sooner the better," he said. "What we want to do is to speed up the process. Afterwards our DII partners will be in competition, because they will be competitors. But in this joint effort we are now all partners because we want to create the market."

When asked why he decided to play a part in the formation of the DII, Mr Fuhr told inthenews.co.uk it was for his children. "I wanted to be able to answer their questions [about the effects of climate change], so I needed to do something."

But the initiative does face certain problems, as New Scientist journalist Fred Pearce pointed out. "It's now widely known that concentrated solar thermal power projects like Desertec need lots of water," he told inthenews.co.uk.

"That's tough when you are in the desert. In the US, regulators are already saying that water supplies will limit the harvesting of solar energy in places like the Mojave desert.

"But so far I can see little sign that the Desertec enthusiasts have addressed this issue. It's not necessarily a deal-breaker. There is water under parts of the Sahara. But it is a big gap in current plans."

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