<article>Algeria Plans Solar Power Cable to Germany

silverharp

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE


ALGIERS - An Algerian company is planning to build a power cable to Germany to export solar-generated electricity from the Sahara, a state-owned newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Tewfik Hasni, chief executive of New Energy Algeria (NEAL), said the 3,000 km (1,875 mile) cable would be laid from the Algerian town of Adrar to the German city of Aachen under a project provisionally entitled "Clean Power From The Desert", El Moudhaid daily reported.
He made the remarks at an Algerian-German business meeting held to coincide with a visit to the north African country this week by German President Horst Koehler, the paper said.
The cable's route would take it across the Mediterranean to the island of Sardinia, mainland Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
The project would be carried out in partnership with a consortium of investors including Algerian state energy giant Sonatrach, which is a shareholder in NEAL, and would depend on final approval from both governments, he said.
NEAL, the main vehicle for OPEC member Algeria's alternative energy strategy, is owned 45 percent by Sonatrach, 45 percent by gas utility Sonelgaz and 10 percent by private agro-industrial firm Semouleries Industrielles de la Mitidja.
Africa's second-largest country, Algeria is 4-1/2 times the size of France and most of its 33 million population live on the northern coastal strip. Its desert south is baked by the sun.
For decades an important gas and oil exporter to Europe, Algeria started planning in recent years to add solar to its portfolio of energy exports to Europe.
El Watan reported Hasni as saying the power for the project would initially come from hybrid solar-gas plants but longer term would eventually come from solar-only ventures.
NEAL, in partnership with Spain's Abener Energia Spa, starts construction next year of a 250 million euro hybrid solar-gas plant at Hassi R'Mel in central M'Zab province with a capacity of 150 MW due to come on stream in late 2009.
The plant will be the first of a series of combined-cycle hybrid plants that NEAL aims should have capacity of 500 MW or 5 percent of national generating capacity, by 2010.
As solar technology improves, Hasni plans to establish pure solar generation plants without the need for gas and gradually expand solar power's capacity.
NEAL has said Algeria's plans to supply solar power to Europe presuppose greater flexibility in European power markets to enable Algeria to connect to its customers' grids. (Writing by William Maclean, editing by William Hardy)

Capt'n Midnight

oddly enough the otherwise impractical hydrogen may be a alernative in this case

over very long distances it may be cheaper to use the electricity to generate hydrogen and pipe it to the destination and then use it to make electiricty there than to run electric cables

the route sounds crazy , morococo the shorter route to spain would seem better since a LOT less work as you can connect into the existing grids. France has a lot of Nukes / history with algeria so not sure if they would like to tap in when the nukes need replacing

silverharp

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

the route sounds crazy , morococo the shorter route to spain would seem better since a LOT less work as you can connect into the existing grids. France has a lot of Nukes / history with algeria so not sure if they would like to tap in when the nukes need replacing

it seems odd, there have been developments in super conducting technology, maybe they reckon they can build a dedicated connector that is fairly effecient.

Capt'n Midnight

two problems with superconducting cables
- you have to keep the cold
- while they may have zero resistance, they do have current density limits so you can't push an infinite current through them

looking at the map again , the cable to sardinia would be the same length as one directly to spain
sardinia has a popluation of 2 million and is well placed for wave / wind / solar power itself anyway it also has hydro power but the water is more valuable for irrigation but this mean the dams could be used for pumped storage. in short not a great place to pipe electricity to especially when you still have a very long way to go to get to the mainland.
spain has a slightly higher population and lisbon in not a million miles aware either

but a biggie is what to do when it gets dark down south - maybe a big dam at the straits of gibraltar and way presto you have one massive pumped storage system, with the added benefit of constant inflow because of evaporation

SeanW

Well, Germany needs all the green energy it can get, because they're shutting down all their nuclear plants and directly replacing them with coal-fired stations (this while they're considering putting speed limits on the Autobahn to cut greenhouse gas emissions :mad: ) so this makes some sense.

AngryHippie

Forget about a Dam across Gibraltar, You forget about the actual power of the sea, and the amount of Sh1t in the Med. Its a bad idea of massive proportions.

Vast solar plants on North Africa on the other hand are one super idea. But again, either hydrogen production or Laser transmission are a better alternative than cables, due to the distance of travel.

The only use the straits of Gibraltar might be able to provide would be tital generators strung the whole way across on a very strong link, this could even double as a hydrogen pipeline, but might put a limit on ship sizes/traffic through the straits, which are pretty busy as I understand it.

Keeping the sea route short is preferable due to maintainance/installation costs which would prove to be very high, especially in the high salininty environment of the med.

Its an idea with hope though.....

Capt'n Midnight

AngryHippie wrote: »

The only use the straits of Gibraltar might be able to provide would be tital generators strung the whole way across on a very strong link, .

not really worth it, not sure about that part of the med but the rest of it doesn't really have any tides to speak of

AngryHippie

Correct and right, but acrosss the straits of Gib, during Ebb Tide there is a strong run westward, during the flow Its only slight in the opposite direction. Thats part of the reason for the higher salinity of the med.

Capt'n Midnight

turbines then
you could one at the top and another one at the bottom , IIRC U-boats used to float through in both directions with the engines off so they would not be detected since the upper current flows in the opposite direction to the lower one

AngryHippie

Nice, you should totally go and do that !!!!