The idea of generating solar energy on a large scale in the sun-intensive countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to satisfy their own increasing energy demand and to export surplus energy to Europe as advocated in the DESERTEC concept1 has publicly received much attention in some countries, particularly in Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and also substantial support from their governments. Besides the DESERTEC Foundation, an industrial consortium (Dii GmbH) was founded in 2009 which consists of major European and MENA companies to push this project further by working on legal, regulatory, technical, and economical frameworks to create viable market conditions for a large-scale roll-out. A systematic inter-connection around the Mediterranean basin and the deployment of 20 GW of renewable energy by 2020 is also at the core of the so-called Mediterranean Solar Plan,2 as part of a political roadmap based on a multi-governmental declaration by all 27 European Union Member States and 16 neighbouring states of the Union for the Mediterranean.
There are pressing challenges in MENA: The rapidly increasing energy (and water) demand in MENA will soon exceed the current supply capacities. It is expected that the electrical energy consumption in MENA will be more than triple by the year 2050 with respect to today.3 Water scarcity is already a serious problem in MENA, and population growth will further aggravate the situation. However, the potential of solar energy in MENA countries is immense with an annual average solar energy irradiance of 2400 kWh/m2. Every year up to 250 GWh of energy per square kilometre of desert could be harvested with solar power plants. This solar potential exceeds by far the potential of other renewable sources such as wind, biomass, hydro, or geothermal energy. Depending on the solar infrastructure, MENA would then be able to produce enough energy and co-generated water through seawater desalination for its own demands.
