Europe plans to tap African solar power

FRANKFURT – Twelve European companies yesterday launched a 400-billion-euro (US$560 billion) initiative to set up huge solar farms in Africa and the Middle East to produce energy for Europe.

The consortium says the massive project could provide up to 15 per cent of Europe’s electricity needs by 2050.Engineering giants ABB and Siemens, energy groups E.ON and RWE and financial institutions Deutsche Bank and Munich Re are among companies which signed a protocol in Munich.The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) would build solar-power generators in North Africa and the Middle East to send huge amounts of electricity to Europe.It would also provide a ‘substantial portion of the power needs of the producer countries,’ the group said in a statement.Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said the European companies involved had pledged to work ‘as equals in a sincere and fair’ manner with the producer countries.Other companies involved are the Spanish firm Abengoa Solar and the Algerian conglomerate Cevital as well as several German banks and engineering companies.The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported in June that the first electricity could begin flowing to Europe in 10 years.It quoted a Siemens spokeswoman as saying that the solar farms could generate up to 100 gigawatts of electricity, the equivalent of 100 power plants. -Nampa-AFP