The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation, an initiative of the Club of Rome, is an international network of scientists and engineers developing a collaboration amongst countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EUMENA) to take advantage of the truly enormous quantities of energy falling as sunlight on the world's deserts—and wind energy in those regions too.

DESERTEC-UK is a group of volunteers who are interested in the 'DESERTEC' concept developed by TREC and aim to raise awareness of it in the UK and beyond. We are also interested in the development of policies that will help make the DESERTEC concept into a reality.

The DESERTEC concept

For a summary, click DESERTEC in brief.

Every year, each square kilometre of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. Multiplying by the area of deserts worldwide, this is several hundred times as much energy as the world uses in a year.

There are also significant amounts of wind energy in desert regions (see Sahara Wind).

The key technology for tapping in to the solar energy is 'concentrating solar thermal power' (CSTP), which means using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to create heat. The heat may be used to raise steam to drive turbines and generators in the conventional way or it may drive Stirling engines with generators. CSTP is very different from the better-known photovoltaics (PV, sometimes called 'solar panels') and should not be confused with it. However, in 'concentrating PV' plants (CPV), mirrors are used to concentrate sunlight on to special heat-resistant PV panels which convert the concentrated sunlight into electricity.

An umbrella term for CSTP and CPV is 'concentrating solar power' (CSP).

Less than 1% of the world's deserts, if covered with concentrating solar power plants, could produce as much electricity as the world now uses.Solar heat that has been captured by a CSTP plant can be stored in melted salts (eg nitrates of sodium or potassium) or other medium so that electricity generation may continue at night or on cloudy days. Also, gas or biofuels may be used as a stop-gap source of heat when there is no sun. More about these aspects of CSTP may be found on the web page about generating electricity without the sun.

Efficient, long-distance transmission of electricity

The existing high-voltage alternating-current (HVAC) transmission grid may allow countries throughout Europe to begin to benefit from 'desert' electricity on relatively short timescales.

As capacities expand, the existing grid may be upgraded using highly-efficient, high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission lines and FACTS technologies. TREC proposes the development of an HVDC 'supergrid', designed to integrate with the existing HVAC transmission lines and reinforce them.

With HVDC, transmission losses are about 3% per 1000 km and there are small AC/DC conversion losses as well. Taking both of these into account, electricity may, for example, be transmitted from North Africa to the UK with less than 10% loss of power. It is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity for 3000 km or more.

90% of the world's population lives within 2700 km of a desert and could be supplied with solar electricity from there.There are several other good reasons for building large-scale HVDC transmission grids (see electricity transmission grids).

A report ('TRANS-CSP') from the German Aerospace Centre has calculated that solar electricity imported from CSP plants in North Africa and the Middle East is likely to become one of the cheapest sources of electricity in Europe, and that includes the cost of transmitting it.

A schematic representation of the DESERTEC proposals: the generation of electricity from renewable sources and its transmission throughout EUMENA via low-loss HVDC transmission lines. Click the map to enlarge it.

At least part of this "supergrid" may be realised using submarine power cables as envisaged in proposals from the wind energy company Aitricity.

CSP as one amongst several kinds of renewable energy

An important point is that, in the scenario up to 2050 described in the TRANS-CSP report, only a part of Europe's electricity would be imported from CSP plants in North Africa or the Middle East. The main thrust of the report is that, compared with the situation now, Europe's dependence on imported energy would be reduced and the variety of sources of electricity would be increased. This means an increase in the resilience and security of Europe's electricity supplies.

For several reasons, we may expect CSP imports to be more secure and less vulnerable to interruption than current imports such as uranium, gas and oil.

The DESERTEC concept is taking shape now

CSP plants are already up and running in several parts of the world and many new ones are now under construction or on the drawing board. Information about the CSP projects that we know about can be seen on Google Earth via a link from our Resources page.

CSP is already feeding electricity into the European electricity grid (from the PS10 plant near Seville in Spain). CSP plants are quick to build and CSP generating capacity may be ramped up fast. With a single market for electricity in Europe (taking shape now) and some modest upgrading of the European transmission grid, the UK could start receiving "clean power from deserts" very soon.

HVDC transmission lines have been in use for over 50 years and the network is expanding (see items marked 'HVDC' on our News pages). The EUMENA-wide HVDC supergrid is already taking shape.

Things that governments can do to help things forward are described in Clean power from deserts: what governments can do.

DESERTEC benefits

GLOBAL SECURITY

In a speech to the UN (April 2007), Margaret Beckett, UK Foreign Secretary, warned that there are few greater threats to global security than climate change and consequent shortages of energy, water, food and land. By alleviating all four of those shortages, the DESERTEC concept may help to reduce the risks of conflict.

More generally, the DESERTEC concept has potential to improve relations and mutual understandings amongst people in EUMENA via a collaboration that yields benefits for all. This accords with Nicolas Sarkozy's call for a new trans-Mediterranean partnership to speed economic development in African countries (in a speech that he made after his election as President of France).

Potential benefits of the DESERTEC concept include:

Plentiful supplies of inexpensive, clean electricity.
Since DESERTEC may be applied in many places around the world, it could have a huge impact in cutting worldwide emissions of CO₂. Countries like China and India can leapfrog the 'dirty' phase of development, making cuts in CO₂ emissions whilst maintaining or increasing their energy supplies. Countries like Saudi Arabia can move directly from being oil-rich to being solar-rich. The USA can meet all its energy needs from its south western states. These things can help break deadlocks in international negotiations about cutting CO₂ emissions.
Jobs and earnings in a large new industry.
The creation of fresh water by the desalination of sea water using the waste heat from CSP plants—a welcome bonus in arid regions.
There is potential for growing plants for food and other uses in the shaded areas under the solar mirrors (using desalinated sea water)
This can bring land into productive use that would not otherwise be suitable for cultivation.
Benefits for global security (see box).

A fuller description of the potential spin-offs from CSP and the DESERTEC proposals may be found on the page about CSP bonuses.

Further information

Quote: "... we are poised for breakaway growth—for explosive growth—not because we are cleaner [than "clean" coal-fired electricity] but because we are cheaper. We happen to be cleaner incidentally." (US venture capitalist Vinod Khosla speaking about CSP at the Solar Power 2006 conference in California. His speech and slide show can be downloaded from the page of CSP resources).There is an overview of CSP and what it can offer, with details of costs, electricity transmission, security of supply, CSP bonuses, and other information.

The DESERTEC concept (or aspects of it) is now endorsed by a range of high-profile organisations and individuals (see our Endorsments page).

The DESERTEC concept is fully described in the MED-CSP, TRANS-CSP and AQUA-CSP reports from the German Aerospace Centre. These can be downloaded via links from our reports page, which includes links to several other reports about CSP and pages about CSP from the European Commission and the US Department of Energy

If you have Google Earth installed, go to CSP plants on Google Earth to see where CSP plants are being planned, being built, or are up and running around the world, with links back to our News page.

The Links page on this website also connects to relevant sources of information.

The News page contains links to web pages with news reports about TREC, TREC's proposals, CSP and HVDC. And the Pictures page contains thumbnails of pictures of CSP plants that can be expanded to full size.

The TREC discussion forum has sections for news, questions and discussion related to the DESERTEC concept.

Raising awareness

Quote: "… analysts evaluated the solar resource in the Southwest [of the US] and … found that CSP could provide nearly 7,000 GW of capacity, or about seven times the current total US electric capacity." (Tackling Climate Change in the US , American Solar Energy Society, January 2007, page 17, emphasis added).

If you feel you can help in any way in raising awareness of these ideas, please get in touch. There is a whole range of different things that can be done, from big ambitious projects down to things that take just a few minutes now and then. Any kind of help will be very welcome.

Some quick and simple things to do are described on our page about Helping things forward.

Last updated: 2008-11-20 (ISO 8601)