{"id":1699,"date":"2011-11-24T20:08:43","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T20:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1699"},"modified":"2011-11-24T20:08:43","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T20:08:43","slug":"german-solar-plant-in-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1699","title":{"rendered":"German solar plant in Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Next year will see the construction of the first European solar power plant in Africa, reports the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 500-megawatt solar power tower is the first concrete step taken by the Desertec consortium \u2013 a German industrial alliance that aims to develop large-scale solar power installations in North-Africa, which will provide 15 percent of Europe\u2019s power needs by 2050. The total investment is estimated at 400 billion euros. The first step, a 500 MW solar plant in Morocco, cost 2 billion euros.<\/p>\n

The Suddeutsche Zeitung bases its information on an interview it had with Ernst Reich, a project manager at Munich Re, one of the founders of Desertec. News about the intended construction is still missing from the official Desertec website, however.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s very positive that they want to start next year,\u201d says Professor Ad van Wijk (future energy systems, Applied Sciences faculty). \u201cProjects as big as Desertec risk getting stuck in the planning stage. It\u2019s always difficult to get it moving.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a serious amount of power,\u201d says Professor Lou van der Sluis (electrical power systems, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty). \u201cIt equals the power of a unit in a coal-fired plant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both professors agree on the technology used: concentrated solar power, which works by rows upon rows of rotating mirrors reflecting the sunlight onto a central \u2018power\u2019 tower, where the heat is stored and converted into pressurised steam that drives a turbine and a coupled generator. If a cloud temporarily blocks the sunlight, one would hardly notice it in the power output, adds Van der Sluis.
\nVan Wijk even thinks the solar plant might produce power at night. He explains that the solar heat is stored in the form of molten salt, and research literature states that a mixture of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate has been used for this purpose. The hot molten salt generates steam for continuous power production, which has the additional advantage of making optimal use of the power cables connecting to the European grid.<\/p>\n

Currently there is a 1400 MW alternating current cable running across the Strait of Gibraltar, which Prof. Van der Sluis confirms is mainly used for transporting power (900 MW on average) from Spain to Morocco. Desertec however prefers a HVDC connection (high voltage direct current). A 500 MW HVDC cable is comparable to the NorNed cable running between the Netherlands and Norway, Van der Sluis says.
\nVan Wijk believes the 2 billion euros budget will include a cable to Europe: \u201cCurrently, the standard for solar power is about 2 euros per Watt peak. So a 500 MW plant should cost 1 billion euros. I think the other half of the amount is for the cable and the converter stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Germany, France and Spain in the consortium, is there any room for Dutch participation? \u201cWe can of course invest,\u201d says Van der Sluis, jokingly. \u201cAnd the CEO, Paul van Son, is Dutch.\u201d
\nVan Wijk: \u201cDesertec is an industrial consortium of big firms like Siemens and RWE. The Netherlands no longer has any big electro-technical industries that could join in. The Dutch are better in offshore and wind energy. That\u2019s what we should develop. In addition to the 15 percent solar power in 2050, there is plenty of need for other sustainable energy sources.\u201d Van der Sluis adds: \u201cOver the past ten years, Germany has invested in solar energy systems, while we just talked and held meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next year will see the construction of the first European solar power plant in Africa, reports the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung. It’s the start of the Desertec solar power programme, aimed at providing 15 percent of European power from solar plants by 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[122,198,229,401,402],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-delta","tag-desertec","tag-germany","tag-hvdc","tag-solar-plant","tag-solar-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}