Saharan Solar Project

Wazdakka

Linky..

Plans to install a series of solar panel farms in the Sahara Desert to power Europe and North Africa are heating up. The idea was discussed in May as part of the newly formed Mediterranean Union, launched at a summit in Paris, and it now has the backing of both UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarcozy.

At the heart of the ambitious Desertec project is the goal to establish 6,500 square miles of concentrated solar power plants in the vast African and Middle Eastern deserts, along with a super-grid of high-voltage transmission lines, to supply countries in Europe and Africa with electricity. The project could supply continental Europe with up to 15% of its total energy needs — producing a stunning 20 GW of power by 2020, as Guenter Gloser, Germany’s deputy foreign minister, told Reuters in June. The first possible power station would be a 2-GW solar thermal power station in Tunisia with power lines to Italy, a project that would take five years to build.

cavedave

The project could supply continental Europe with up to 15% of its total energy needs — producing a stunning 20 GW of power by 2020

So if Ireland produced 20 GW that would be 15% of all the EU's energy needs. From this page.

The total investment for a wind turbine averages €1.1 million per installed megawatt

So it would cost us about 20 billion for us to produce that much energy.

Gurgle

cavedave wrote: »

So if Ireland produced 20 GW that would be 15% of all the EU's energy needs. From this page.

We're going to need 15% 6.666 times to make up that 100%.
Plug 'em all in.

Ireland is in a great position (geographically, not technically) to export GWs of scavenged power to Europe but its going to take a lot more than a wind farmers co-op to get anywhere towards that.

So it would cost us about 20 billion for us to produce that much energy.

€1.1 million per installed megawatt = €1,100 per kW, at 50% runtime (night is such a disadvantage to solar) thats 4,380kW per year. Based on current electricity costs at ~12c per kWh this would give 100% payback in 2 years.

Methinks this is more 'think happy thoughts' than a real plan.

cavedave

Methinks this is more 'think happy thoughts' than a real plan.

Why? If you are right and the payback rally is in less then five years it would seem silly not to invest.

Gurgle

cavedave wrote: »

Why? If you are right and the payback rally is in less then five years it would seem silly not to invest.

Thats pretty much why - if it sounds too good to be true, its probably too good to be true.

Be Do Have

Gurgle wrote: »

Thats pretty much why - if it sounds too good to be true, its probably too good to be true.

I have heard about the sahara solar project, its sounds really great. But when the costings were done, they found that the hundreds of miles of cabling and transmission lines into and around europe would add up to the billions of euro along.

So keeping energy production and distribution local is the key when we start to build our way out of our fossil fuel addiction.

Solar pv panels never give you anywhere near there rated power of output is for a whole load of reasons im not going to go into here.

So before you invest in your sahara project, reduce those financial return figures by about 70% to be more realistic.

Ireland however is probably the richest energy holder in the world per capita, but sadly we just don't see it yet...yahoo!:spirit of ireland

medici

Great idea I suppose but I read somewhere that a vast amount of money/infrastructure will be required just to pipe water to these solar fields in order to clean panels, lenses etc.

Seeing as it's a desert couldn't this lead to a lot of political wrangling over control of water?

r3nu4l

medici wrote: »

Great idea I suppose but I read somewhere that a vast amount of money/infrastructure will be required just to pipe water to these solar fields in order to clean panels, lenses etc.

Seeing as it's a desert couldn't this lead to a lot of political wrangling over control of water?

Indeed, not only political wrangling but also money provided to Governments of the countries whose land is to be used. Money to provide security for these solar fields and of course money to pay off local militias so that they leave the fields alone.

That's on top of the upkeep and maintenance costs!

Azelfafage

The Americans are already far advanced in plans to turn empty Arizona deserts into a vast solar collector.

An area the size of Ireland is to become a solar collector.

The "Solar Grand Plan" published in Scientific American magazine in January 2008 is a document of truly historical importance.

The age of oil and gas and coal is rapidly coming to an end.

Related Link:

http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Resources_files/SunWindEnergy_August2008.pdf

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YFlyer

Azelfafage wrote: »

The age of oil and gas and coal is rapidly coming to an end.


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A long way to go yet.