•  berlin
• Friday, November 18, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Solar thermal power plants are indispensable to meet Europe’s energy demands and to reduce greenhouse gases emissions substantially, according to a new study by a European scientific commission.

The report by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) says solar thermal power plants can play a central role in moving the European power grid to renewable energy sources by 2040.

Such solar units 'are able to provide energy at any time, to compensate for fluctuations in the supply of renewable energies…and help stabilise the power grid,' Robert Pitz- Paal, director of the study published earlier this month, and co-director of the German Institute for Solar Research told IPS.

These virtues make 'the value of the electricity generated go beyond just the kilowatt-hours they feed into the system,' Pitz-Paal said.

Solar units use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and convert it into thermal energy. This process achieves temperatures of 400 to 1200 degrees Celsius, which can be used to generate power in the same way as a conventional steam- operated power station.

The technique has been in use since the 1980s, but experts say it only reached maturity during the last decade. Solar units are in operation on a significant scale in western U.S. and in Spain.

A giant plan to install solar units in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region called the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) was announced in the summer of 2009. The solar units under this would feed North African energy demands, and also deliver electricity to the European Union (EU).

The plan was drawn up following studies by the Club of Rome, an independent development group, and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a state-owned research institute and part of the EASAC.

Earlier this month DII announced construction of a 500 megawatt (MW) solar unit in Morocco next year. DII was set up by ten large European companies, including the German electricity providers E.ON and RWE, the electronics giant Siemens, the insurance company Munich Re and Deutsche Bank. Now, more than 50 companies have joined DII.

DII chief executive Paul van Son says the solar power plant in Morocco would be a 'reference project' to show investors and policy makers that the Desertec project can work as a major source of renewable electricity.

Van Son said the plant in Morocco, to come up at a cost of 2 billion euros (2.8 billion dollars), should be in operation in 2015.

The first phase of the 12-square-kilometre Moroccan complex will be a 150 MW facility costing up to 600 million euros. Other plants in Tunisia and Algeria would follow, he said.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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