Gradually, the Mediterranean Solar Plan is developed. Thursday morning in Brussels, the two flagship projects and Medgrid Desertec designed separately at first, will sign a cooperation agreement. Of French origin, the first consortium aims to build high-voltage lines connecting Africa to Europe. Inspired by German, the second involves the construction of huge solar farms in North Africa.
The document will be ratified by André Merlin, President of Medgrid, and Paul Van Son, his alter ego in Desertec. Eric Besson, the French Minister of Industry and Jochen Homann, his German counterpart, will also attend. In Brussels, which is also a Council of European Ministers of Energy, the Commission also takes advantage of having worked for the merger of the two initiatives quick cash.But technological advances have reduced line losses, which now stand at 3% per thousand miles, plus 2% at the entrance and exit of high-voltage network, says the expert of the IEA.
Current day and night
The future of solar photovoltaic Maghreb will not. This will be central to thermal concentration (on the principle of Gemasolar, Spain) that have the great advantage of storing energy and thus provide power at night or on cloudy days, and especially the demand.
The first project under the Desertec should expand its parabolic mirrors of 12 square kilometers, near Ouarzazate (Morocco) and an output of 500 megawatts (more than half of a nuclear reactor for generating Fessenheim for example).