German firms launch Sahara energy project (Roundup)

Munich - German firms on Monday launched a renewable energy project designed to provide European households with electricity from solar power plants in the Sahara. Utilities giants RWE and E.ON, electro-engineering group Siemens and Deutsche Bank are among the dozen companies involved in the 400- billion-euro (552-billion-dollar) Desertec Industrial Initiative. 'If things go according to plan we can begin building the first power station in 2015,' said Torsten Jeworrek, board member of insurer Munich Re, another firm involved in the project. The consortium agreed to form a consultancy by the end of October, which would have three years to conduct a feasibility study, look into methods of financing and evaluate political issues involved. The initial budget for this preparatory work would be 1.8 million euros a year, Jeworrek said, adding it would take decades for the project to reach full capacity. The Desertec project calls for an array of solar thermal power plants to be deployed in the deserts of North Africa and the Mediterranean. These types of power plants use parabolic mirrors to collect the sun's rays and turn them into 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 eventually supply 15 per cent of the continent's electricity needs. The Middle East-North Africa region would also be able to meet a large portion of its energy needs from the scheme, its initiators said, without disclosing where the plants will be built. Some experts have questioned where the money for the mammoth project will come from. Guenter Gloser, a German minister of state, said Germany and the European Union would help with start-up financing, but private investors would have to make up the bulk of the funding. Environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the venture. 'Energy suppliers, financial institutions and plant manufacturers could turn energy from the desert into a showcase for the rest of world,' a Greenpeace spokesman said. 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. The technology is different from photovoltaics, the other popular form of solar power, which converts solar energy directly into electricity.