Developing Desertec: European Dream of Desert Energy Takes Shape

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In addition to such storage tanks, the Desertec project would require cables to bring the electricity to European population centers. The cables would be high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines, which can transmit electricity over a distance of 1,000 kilometers with losses of less than 3 percent.

The longest of these underwater HVDC lines went into operation in late 2008. It transmits power from the Netherlands to Norway, or the other way around, depending on where the electricity happens to be cheaper at any given time. The Norned cable already recouped more than 10 percent of the initial investment within its first three months of operation.

Encased in plastic and protected by a metal shell, the cables consist of copper or aluminum wires with a thickness of 5 centimeters. They are unwound from special ships and buried on the sea floor by robots.

Enormous Costs

The costs are enormous. The 200-kilometer cable that will connect the Bard offshore wind farm in the North Sea to the German grid will cost about €300 million. Some 80 to 100 of these cables would be needed to bring all the electricity Desertec claims will be generated in the Sahara from Africa to Europe.

"Laying that sort of thing through the Mediterranean will not always be economically lucrative," says Jochen Kreusel of the ABB Group, which supplied the Norned cable. "In this case, it is up to society to establish the right basic conditions" so that laying the cables makes economic sense.

A dispute between France and Spain that has been raging for years over the construction of a high-performance cable in the Pyrenees shows just how difficult this can be. Besides, citizens' initiatives are constantly blocking or delaying new projects throughout Europe. "Simply expanding a line in Germany takes 15 years, including all the expropriation proceedings," says Fraunhofer scientist Jürgen Schmid. "This could bring down the entire project."

German Companies in the Lead

Nevertheless, in Morocco, which has almost no fossil fuel resources, Desertec has attracted a great deal of interest. Last year, the Moroccans approved their own solar plan, under which the country, with support from the World Bank, will install 2,000 megawatts of solar power by 2020. The Desertec companies also hope that a country like Italy, which is hardly likely to meet its climate target set by the EU, could reduce its environmental footprint with clean energy from Tunisia.

If the boom does in fact take off, German companies, which are worldwide leaders in solar technology, will be the first to benefit. Giants like Siemens are involved in the business, but so are smaller, specialized companies. Cologne-based Flagsol produces solar control devices, the Bavarian company Schott Solar makes heat receptors for the solar troughs, and Solar Millennium, based in Erlangen in southern Germany, provides project development services. German companies already control a third of the worldwide market for solar thermal energy.

When the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy calculated the projected revenues for German solar companies by the year 2050 under a best-case scenario, it came up with an astronomical figure: €2 trillion.

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• Part 1: European Dream of Desert Energy Takes Shape
• Part 2: Dependent on Taxpayers and Consumers
• Part 3: The Man Behind the Vision
• Part 4: 'The Closer to God, the Better the Rays'
• Part 5: The Cable Challenge