Desertec solar hopes cloud over as support starts to waver

[phantom power]

A significant piece of good news for the ambitious €400 billion (Dh1.87 trillion) scheme came in April, when one of its members, Germany’s Solar Millennium, said its 150 megawatt Kuraymat project in Egypt was nearing completion and could serve as a template for other north African solar farms.

Then came the bad news with Algeria’s decision last month not to participate in the Desertec Industrial Initiative, which was formally launched last year by a group of 12 European companies, mostly from Germany. On Monday, Paul van Son, the director of the group, said he was now also concerned about declining German government support for the project.

“We were surprised that after the project received strong support at the beginning, it wasn’t even mentioned in energy concept draft,” he told Dow Jones on the sidelines of a renewable energy conference in Frankfurt. Mr van Son said the Desertec partners needed subsidies, possibly through feed-in tariffs, to guarantee electricity prices that would cover the generation and transmission costs.

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Sceptics have also said it would be difficult to guarantee that electricity exported to Europe was sourced from solar energy rather than the growing number of coal, oil and gas-fired power plants being built in MENA countries to supply the region’s expanding domestic energy needs.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100901/BUSINESS/709019929/1050