Algeria Aims To Export Power — Solar Power

Goal Is To Send 6,000 Megawatts — About One Tenth Of Germany's Power Use

(AP) 

"The solar potential of Algeria is huge, enormous, because solar radiation is high and there is plenty of land for solar plants," said Eduardo Zarza Moya, who works on solar power for Spain's public energy research center, CIEMAT. "The price of the land is low, it's cheap, and there is also manpower."

Algeria already uses photovoltaic solar panels to electrify 18 scattered, off-grid villages in the Sahara, and 16 more are due to come on line by 2009. Two such projects are run by British-based company BP.

The Hassi R'Mel site represents large-scale power generation. It is the first of four planned hybrid plants which will use Algeria's abundant natural gas to supplement sunshine and ensure power at night or in cloudy weather. The Hassi R'Mel plant, which will produce power for domestic consumption, will also house a research center to study how to reduce solar power costs.

The hybrid plants will use a thermal technology called concentrating solar power, or CSP, in which sunlight heats fluids to drive an electricity-generating turbine.

The system is widely regarded as being cheaper and having better storage potential for large-scale energy production than photovoltaic technology, which converts sunlight directly into electricity. CSP plants have operated in California since the 1980s, but when gas prices fell, new construction stopped.

Spanish engineering firm Abener has a 66 percent share in the $425 million Hassi R'Mel project, having won an international tender to build the plant with Algeria's NEAL.

Algeria hopes to build three other hybrids generating 400 megawatts each by 2015, by which time Algeria aims to be producing 6 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.

Experts warn that financing the cables may wipe out the profits from selling the power in Europe. They also say the domestic market will find it hard to compete with cheap Algerian oil and gas.

But they're positive about the long-term outlook. The gas component in the hybrid plants will produce some greenhouse emissions. "But gas is much cleaner than oil and in time you will increase the share of solar," said Richard Perez, a research professor specializing in solar power at the State University of New York. He spoke to The Associated Press by phone.

Franz Trieb, an analyst at the German Space Agency in Stuttgart who helped produce a recent study on CSP in Mediterranean and Middle East countries, said that by 2020 the cost of collecting solar power would be equivalent to paying $15 for a barrel of oil.

"In 2020, we will have considerable capacity of CSP installed worldwide and this will lead to cost reductions," he said. Delivery systems "would add a little bit to the cost but not too much. It could be competitive with electricity prices in Europe."

According to International Energy Agency figures, renewable energies excluding hydroelectricity still account for just 2 percent of world power, and 0.5 percent of world energy production. Fossil fuels are expected to remain dominant until at least 2030.

But investment in renewable energy rose from $80 billion in 2005 to $100 billion in 2006, and solar companies raised more than any other renewable energy sector on public markets last year, at $5.6 billion — more than triple what they raised in 2005, according to a report released in June by the United Nations Environment Program. The biggest investments were in the United States, Europe, China and India.

Major energy companies say they are not yet ready to invest abroad on a large scale. ExxonMobil spokesman Dave Gardner said the technology breakthroughs would have to be significant to attract ExxonMobil investment.

But he said his company is seeking to foster such breakthroughs by funding a $225 million project at Stanford University on renewables and energy efficiency.

Algerian energy officials acknowledge that the country's success with solar power will depend on demand and technology.

Right now, solar-derived electricity costs 25 percent more than using gas and will need to be subsidized for 10 years until the cost of solar power comes down, said Hasni, the Algerian company director.

"The current race is to see who will control renewable energy technologies, and we are in the race," Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters. "We have the human and financial resources, and we have the will."

[hwk_i67]

I wonder how big oil and the OPEC cartel will throw a wrench into this.
Posted by NavyRetired2 at 07:39 PM : Aug 11, 2007

By doing what they've always done-say it isn't cost effective and try to drown it out with bad publicity. Sounds like they're starting to lose that war. Finally!

[grazinggoat]

"Our potential in thermal solar power is four times the world's energy consumption so you can have all the ambitions you want with that."-------------Tewfik Hasni
New Energy Algeria

-Keep it low profile. DicckCheney will be tempted by invading Algieria. Keep it low profile.

[huanaco]

WONDERFUL ! SOMEBODY IS DOING THE RIGHT THING. LET,S SEE HOW THE OIL COUNTRIES REACT TO THIS PROYECT. I DON,T THINK THEY ARE HAPPY ABOUT AND THIS IS ONLY THE BEGUINNING.AUSTRALIA COULD DO THE SAME.

[navyretired2]

I wonder how big oil and the OPEC cartel will throw a wrench into this.