Desertec Study

DESERTEC :

Presentation of an energy project

15 October 2010

Stockholm

On 13 July 2009, 12 international companies agreed about considering economic, social and environmental aspects of the project as decisive levers in its success. They gave it a concrete expression by signing a Memorandum of Understanding in Munich to establish a DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII) which states the problems and opportunities described in the following part.

1 _The Environmental aspect

One of the main purposes of Desertec is to satisfy all the energetic needs of the MENA region and 15% of the energetic European request until 2050. Moreover, according to experts, humankind has to change his energy sources of production in order to decrease green houses gas emissions, mainly methane and CO2, until 2050 by a minimum of 60-70% [5].

The following table (Figure 4) highlights the huge potential of power produced in desert of North Africa compared to the other sources of energy for the same space and time:

Figure 4: Amount of power produced per square kilometer of land surface per year [10]

Based on these needs and findings, Desertec seems to provide the good solution. In fact, the scenario provided in the following table (Figure 5) emphasizes the positive change in energy consumption as a consequence of the use of imported solar energy.

Figure 5: Resource allocations in Europe’s power mix of the TRANS-CSP scenario [11]

2 _Social aspects

Actually, with 75% of the African population under the poverty line, with no access to human living condition or even drinking water, the project provides the opportunity to join the bipolar world and decrease the gap between poor and riches. In fact, the founder principle of the project lies in guaranteeing...