A mega solar plant in North Africa to power the EU was a topic of conversation at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona. According to an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper quoting Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau of the European Commission’s Institute for Energy, it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe’s energy needs.
If built, the plant under discussion would be the size of Wales. Scientists believe that by building a solar power plant of that size and laying down high-voltage transmission cables, enough solar energy to power the entire continent could possibly be captured.
According to Jaeger-Walden the construction of the plant in the Sahara, due to the intense sunlight in North Africa, would be more efficient and produce three times more energy than a plant in Europe.
The solar farms would produce electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the intense desert heat to boil water and drive turbines. This, along with power from other renewable sources, such as wind or geothermal, would then be fed into a 5,000-mile electricity supergrid, stretching from Siberia to Morocco and Egypt to Iceland.
The construction of such a project seems cost prohibitive at first mention. According to estimates just the supergrid alone would cost around $70 billion. Given that oil firms spend up to $5 billion per oil development on producing oil that is sure to run out eventually, the price tag of the supergrid that could produce energy in perpetuity is not so hefty. If shared by nations, then it begins to look even more attractive.
The project has the support of the UK’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy.