Solar Power to provide solar energy to Europe
European Union scientists are working on a plan to harness the solar energy in the Sahara desert with solar panels. According to the scientists, Europe's energy needs could be met by capturing only 0.3 per cent of the desert's sunlight.
Thus, pooling the renewable energy is at the centre of an ambitious scheme to build a £45bn (£35.7bn) European supergrid. The supergrid would allow countries across the continent to share electricity from plentiful green sources, for example, wind energy in the UK and Denmark plus geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy.
The grid proposal is gaining growing political support in Europe. Also, it has won backing of Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy.
Moreover, scientists aver that the sunlight in the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts is more intense. So,
solar photovoltaic (PV)
panels in northern Africa have the capacity to generate up to three times the electricity as compared to similar panels in northern Europe.
Electricity produced in solar farms in North Africa will be fed thousands of miles across European countries. This will be done by utilising high-voltage direct current (DC) transmission lines instead of the traditional alternating current (AC) lines. It is because on the DC lines the energy losses are far lower than AC ones where transmission of energy over long distances becomes unprofitable.
Further supporting the proposal scientists say that by drawing power from wind and solar farms across a large swathe of Europe, there will always be power generated somewhere.
The cost of energy could be brought down for consumers by building large solar farms, says Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy.
He also mentions that the biggest PV system at present is installed in Leipzig and the cost of the installation is £3.25 per watt.
However, before the plan could help the EU meet its target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, much time and investment is required.
The scientists working on the project estimate that with an investment of around £450bn (£356bn) it could produce 100 GW by 2050. This much energy is more than the combined electricity output from all sources in Britain.
