Sun from the Sahara may light up Europe's homes (News Feature)

Berlin - European households could one day get part of their electricity from the Sahara desert under an ambitious project unveiled in the Bavarian city of Munich on Monday. A consortium of 12 German firms laid the groundwork for a scheme to harness the sun's energy in a chain of solar thermal power plants spanning the deserts of North Africa and the Mediterranean. The 400-billion-euro (552-billion-dollar) Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) involves Utilities giants RWE and E.ON, electro-engineering group Siemens and Deutsche Bank, among others. Solar thermal power makes use of parabolic mirrors to collect sunlight to create heat which is used to produce steam to drive turbines and electricity generators. Using high voltage direct current transmission lines, the energy could then be transferred to Europe where it could supply 15 per cent of the continent's electricity needs by 2020. But countries in the Middle East-North Africa region would also be able to meet a large portion of their own energy needs from the scheme, its initiators said in a statement, without disclosing where the plants will be built. The consortium agreed to form a consultancy by the end of October, which would look into methods of financing and present a concrete investment plan within three years. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called Desertec 'a truly visionary project.' 'It offers great potential for regional cooperation in all of North Africa and between those states that still have closed borders,' he said in Berlin. Solar thermal technology has been used in California's Mojave desert since the mid-1980s and is also in operation in the arid region of Andalusia in the south of Spain. But some experts have question the 400-billion-euro cost of the new mammoth venture and where the funding will come from. Desertec board chairman Gerhard Knies said the investment was calculated over a period of 40 years and worked out at just 10 billion euros per year - a relatively small sum compred to other investments in the energy sector. He also dismissed arguments that Europe could put itself at a disadvantage by becoming dependent on energy supplies from so-called problem states. 'In the oil and natural gas sectors we are already dependent on Algeria and Libya, but things are going very well,' he told the German radio station MDR Info. 'Within six hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year,' he said. Siemens estimates that an area of 300 x 300 kilometres in the Sahara fitted with parabolic collectors would be enough to meet the planet's entire energy needs. Solar thermal technology is different from photovoltaics, the other popular form of solar power, which converts solar energy directly into electricity. 'Energy suppliers, financial institutions and and plant manufacturers could turn energy from the desert into a showcase for the rest of world,' said environment group Greenpeace. It said companies involved in the project had to treat it as an alternative to 'environmentally harmful nuclear and coal-generated energy' and not as a rival to wind power or photovoltaics.