Mediterranean Union Spurs Solar Thermal Plants, North Africa Plays Role

Mediterranean Union Spurs Solar Thermal Plants

By Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Michael Valenti

In July 2008, the European Union (EU) moved to strengthen the development and deployment of solar thermal power plants through the Mediterranean Union. The latter organisation is made up of 43 European, African, and Middle Eastern countries with a total population of approximately 780 million.

The goal of the Mediterranean Union is to foster closer cooperation between European countries and their southern neighbours in solar thermal development through actual shared projects, rather than as a loose confederation of states. This includes the 27 members of the EU, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Monaco, Montenegro, Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority, and observer status, Libya.

The Mediterranean Union was championed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy since he first took office of the Republic. Sarkozy serves as co-president with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to give the new international union equal representation of the northern and southern member countries.

Solar energy was one of the major initiatives set forth in the Joint Declaration of the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean published in Paris on July 13, 2008, as the Mediterranean Solar Plan. The document states: The recent activity on energy markets in terms of both supply and demand, confirms the need to focus on alternative energy sources. Market deployment as well as research and development of all alternative sources of energy are therefore a major priority in efforts toward assuring sustainable development.

The Secretariat is tasked to explore the feasibility, development, and creation of a Mediterranean Solar Plan. This would include using solar energy to desalinate seawater for drinking and agricultural purposes.

If the Mediterranean Solar Plan lives up to its potential, Frost & Sullivan expects to see multinational projects such as the DESERTEC Concept that was presented to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, in late 2007. The concept is based on studies conducted by the German Aerospace Center and describes generating electricity from the sunny countries in the Middle East and North Africa and sending it to central European countries. According to the DESERTEC plan, approximately 15% of European electricity needs could be met by imported solar energy.

The DESERTEC plan specifies concentrating solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to concentrate sunlight on heat transfer fluid to convert water into steam to drive turbines and make electricity. Waste heat can be use to desalinate seawater, a major goal for the arid countries in the Mediterranean Union.

A key technology to the DESERTEC scheme is high voltage direct current transmission lines that are designed to limit power losses to approximately 3% per 1000 kilometers. Although the transmission losses may rise to 15% between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, the high levels of solar radiance in the southern regions – twice that of Europe – more than offsets those losses. Another benefit is the steady stream of sunlight in North Africa and the Middle East, compared to solar variation in Europe.

Ideally, these solar thermal power plants should be equipped with molten salt tanks to store heat during the day that can be used to power steam turbines at night or during peak demand. Solar Millenium AG has formed a joint venture with MAN Ferrostaal AG of Essen, Germany, called MAN Solar Millenium GmbH, also based in Essen, to provide the preliminary work before the official contract award for a parabolic trough solar thermal plant that will be equipped with solar thermal storage units, which can permit energy to be generated in a timed manner so that the Spanish power grid will be able to draw upon power during the night. MAN Ferrostaal designs and builds large-scale industrial plants.

The joint venture will serve as general contractor on the Andasol 3 project, also based in Andalusia, which will consist of parabolic mirrors covering a half-million square meters to create steam that will generate power for up to 200,000 people when it is completed as scheduled in February 2011.

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