German Companies Looking To Africa For Solar Power

Twenty of Germany’s blue chip companies are pooling their resources to take advantage of the African desert’s sun. They plan on supplying the whole of Europe with power using solar energy and they plan to get it done with in a decade. This is the biggest solar project ever imagined and is known as “Desertec”.  It will cost upwards of 800 billion dollars to make a reality.  The companies, including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and the energy companies RWE and E.on, will meet on July 13, 2009 in Munich to draw up an agreement. German government ministries as well as the Club of Rome, a Zurich-based NGO of leading scientists, managers and politicians which advocates sustainable development, are also expected to be present. The technique called “concentrating solar power” or CSP, uses banks of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays in a central column filled with water. The rays heat the water, vaporising  it into a steam which is then used to drive turbines which generate carbon-free electricity.

German representatives of environmental groups yesterday widely welcomed the news that big businesses were prepared to give the project a backbone for the first time.

“Businesses have finally recognised that renewable energies belong to the future, and in times of economic crisis this also sends out an important signal for economic growth,” said Andree Bohling of Greenpeace.

Torsten Jeworrek, board member of Munich Re, the German re-insurer which is leading the project, said: “We want to found an initiative which over the next two to three years will put concrete measures on the table.” The 400 billion euro investment would be enough to cover 15% of Europe’s electricity requirements, according to Jeworrek.  He added “in technical terms this project can be realised” but stressed in order for it to be sustainable it would have to finance itself in the long-run and be competitive within 10 to 15 years.