Catch the Sahara desert

In Algeria last week, it was announced that plans for a 3,000-kilometer transmission line, which will carry electricity from the Sahara to Europe. This is the first project to exploit this desert, with great potential: It is estimated that only 0.3% of the Sahara is enough to power both Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

According to German physicist, Gerhard Knies, the initiator of the TREC project (Collaboration of Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy), the desert covers about 36 million km2 out of a total of 149 million square kilometers of planetary land . Solar energy drops to 1km ² desert, averaging about 2.2TWh / year, ie 80 million TWh down to the desert. This energy is so large that only 1% of the desert surface is enough to produce electricity for all humanity.

In 2003, a meeting of experts was organized and convinced the German Government funded a further study. This study was carried out by engineer Franz Trieb, under the direction of the German Space and Space Center (DLR). Later research was published in 2005 and 2006, which confirmed the feasibility of the project.

High economic efficiency

The most important point of the project is economic efficiency. According to Franz Trieb, currently, a solar power plant produces electricity at prices ranging from 0.14 to 0.18 euros / kWh. If a 5,000MW plant is built, the price of electricity can be reduced to between 0.08 and 0.12 euros / kWh, with a factory of 100GW capacity, the price will range from 0.04 to 0, 06 euros / kWh.

CSP solar power stations at an air base in New Mexico, USA.(Photo: VNN)

Currently, solar power plants in the world still count on fingertips, mainly concentrated in Spain, the US and Germany. Moreover, they are usually built in agricultural areas or where there are many trees, so they are not suitable for the environment. 40 MW power plant in Brandis (Germany), for example, covers 110 hectares of agricultural land. In the desert, such waste of space does not happen at all.

With these benefits, many Egyptian, Moroccan and Algerian companies are interested in this project. Algeria, a country with great solar potential, announced the development plan with the participation of Algerian New Energy Company.

On November 3, the Algerian Ministry of Energy placed the first stone to build a mixed facility, including a 150MW gas-fired power plant and a 30MW solar power plant in the Hassi R'mel area. (Sahara), expected to be completed in 2010. This is the first stage to prepare for the possibility of a complete transition to solar energy when production costs decrease.

And on November 13, Algeria New Energy Company also announced plans for a 3,000km long power line connecting Adrar (Algeria) with Aachen (Germany). This is the starting line for the electric network connecting North Africa to Europe, which will transmit 80% of the solar power produced in the Sahara in the future.

The project will use central solar detectors (CSP) - use sunlight to heat water, and steam generated as a rotating turbine. This technology is slightly different from the traditional optical system (PV) - using mirrors to directly convert the sun's rays into energy.

CSP has been widely acknowledged to be much more effective than traditional methods. It can generate electricity all night thanks to heat storage chambers. However, CSP needs to have direct sunlight, and a lot, which also means it is very suitable for working in the desert.

The excess energy from electricity production can also be used to extract salt from seawater - a problem that is of great concern to Mediterranean countries.