EU wants African sunlight to power Europe’s electric revolution

[u/Gold-Loan3142]

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-invest-e5-billion-in-renewables-in-north-africa-and-middle-east/

[u/FiveFingerDisco]

We've been there 2 decades ago

[u/iqisoverrated → u/FiveFingerDisco]

Yeah, it didn't make financial sense then and it doesn't make financial sense now (on top: it doesn't make any geopolitical sense now what with subsea cables being easy to cut).

Europe has ample untapped solar potential of its own.

[u/GuidoDaPolenta → u/iqisoverrated]

Whether you think it makes sense or not, connecting Europe to other continents via undersea cable is already happening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sea_Interconnector

The islands of the Mediterranean need to get power from somewhere, and seeing as they are so close to Africa and Asia, it just makes sense to connect them to multiple grids and buy power wherever it is cheapest.

[u/Stratoveritas2 → u/iqisoverrated]

Show me the math on the financial case. Undersea cable don’t remove Europe’s existing generation capacity, they simply add to it by providing another source.

You’re ignoring the fact that northern Europe has long winters with reduced sunlight hours. HVDC cables carrying low cost consistent solar from Africa provides seasonal arbitrage, and at scale is likely lower in cost than the amount of solar you would need to to meet Europe’s demand in winter which would mean massive overcapacity at other times of year.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/Stratoveritas2]

It's still the same math as with DESERTEC (which was the previous initiative that was very much the same idea). It didn't fly because it was too expensive compared to just doing solar 'at home'. (Even though a power cable between Tunesia and Sicily has been authorized in 2022 nothing has happened since that I'm aware of)

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ad9465 → u/iqisoverrated]

Solar costs less than 10% per watt what it did 15 years ago. This project is far more viable now than previously.

[u/drLoveF → u/Puzzleheaded_Ad9465]

And that applies when it’s done in Europe as well. In fact, if production costs plummet while transportation costs remain roughly steady, it makes even less sense to import from North Africa.

[u/Ulyks → u/Puzzleheaded_Ad9465]

Solar panels have become very cheap indeed.

Long distance power transmission has not. It got more expensive...

Batteries meanwhile got significantly cheaper.

So there is less of a case for it now than 15 years ago.

[u/Gold-Loan3142 → u/Ulyks]

The reason for these projects is not that solar is cheaper in N Africa, but it is reasonably steady all year round. In Europe, the shorter days and grey skies of winter mean that solar generation is a small fraction of that of the summer months. To give you an example, the panels on my roof in the UK produce about six times less in winter than in summer. You can look up national seasonal statistics for UK solar generation and they'll tell a similar story. (You can see a yearly solar chart for the UK here: https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ )

Batteries are great for smoothing out over a few hours or a day or two, but they cannot store months worth of electricity in the summer to get us through the winter. Systems that might do so are much more expensive and problematic (e.g. chemical storage, say hydrogen, plus fuel cells). Perhaps something better will come along - renewables make rapid progress - but for now, helping the relevant countries to have clean electricity and jobs in the future (when they no longer sell oil & gas) isn't such a bad prospect and they are keen to do it - Morocco already is, and exporting to Spain.

[u/lfc94121 → u/iqisoverrated]

I think geopolitical risk is unacceptable to rely on this for more than 5% of Europe electricity.  But even 5% is a lot of capacity, making it worthwhile. 

But yes, Europe has a lot of untapped potential. Spain is the next best thing to Africa in terms of solar irradiance. Lots of empty space in some of their regions.  The main thing they need is new transmission lines over the Pyrenees.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/lfc94121]

Every country has ample solar potential. Even the nordics. People have a wrong idea about how much solar falls off the further you go north. It doesn't fall off nearly enough to make solar not viable in throughout a large part of the year. In winter you use on-shore wind because that is seasonally anti-cyclical to solar and the cost per kWh have come down to be about the same.

Off-shore potential hasn't even been tapped yet to any great degree given the potential there (particularly off Ireland and the Great Britain)

[u/Ulyks → u/lfc94121]

Can't we go around the Pyrenees? on the Atlantic and Mediterranean sides of the Pyrenees are some great corridors for easier to construct UHVDC lines.

[u/Ok-Quality-9246 → u/iqisoverrated]

Europe has a ton of untapped domestic potential for sure. But winter solar in Germany drops to maybe a fifth of summer output and that's when you actually need the electricity most.

North Africa doesn't flatten out completely either but the seasonal swing is way smaller, so you'd be importing during the months where domestic panels are barely producing. That said, the cable vulnerability thing is real and that part makes me nervous.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/Ok-Quality-9246]

Look at wind in winter. There's almost as much renewable power generation in winter in germany as there is in summer.

On-shore wind produces way more in winter than in summer. PV more in summer than in winter. The two complement each other well and on-shore wind also does not require a large footprint (it actually requireds way less of a footprint than solar)

It's not an either/or decision. A good mix of both - according to the latitude of the country will get you very steady renewable power production year round (no 'seasonal storage' required)

[u/Ok-Quality-9246 → u/iqisoverrated]

True, I was too zoomed in on PV there.

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/iqisoverrated]

Y'all out here talking about, "we don't need it." If everyone switches to EVs and electric heat pumps, you might double per capita electricity use. If you want to do that in 30 years?

You can't turn down any sources of power. Just my initial thought.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

Doubling power production is not an issue (actually full electrification - including green hydrogen for fertilizer and heat pumps for industrial process heat - is more a tripling of power requirements)

There's plenty of space. Even if one were so insane as to try and do all of that solely with solar (i.e. no wind power whatsoever) then roof space alone would suffice - not one square meter of land required. (It wouldn't be the cheapest way to go about it, since ground bases PV is much cheaper than PV on roofs...and, of course, mixing wind and solar is much better because they complement each other seasonally)

In addition there's plenty of land that isn't good enough for agriculture; plenty of co-usable land for on-shore wind and agriculture; and plenty of agricultural land that can be combined with agrivoltaics.

...and, of course, then there's off-shore wind.

Finding enough space for setting up renewables is really not a problem in any country in the world (maybe Vatican City. It has enough roof space but a lot of that is historically protected)

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/iqisoverrated]

In 25 years Europe has increased per capita electricity use from 5.6 mwh to 6.1 mwh. That's an 8% increase in 25 years.

You are kidding yourself if you think you can increase it by 100%, 12x that change, in just as many years, and still be able to turn down power projects with sub sea cables from Morocco / Egypt / Libya etc.

It's not about land area, it's speed to power. You have to do what the Chinese are doing, which is move at warp speed on every possible dimension.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

In 25 years Europe has increased per capita electricity use from 5.6 mwh to 6.1 mwh. That's an 8% increase in 25 years.

You are kidding yourself if you think you can increase it by 100%, 12x that change, in just as many years, 

We didn't have the two (maybe three) huge new use cases for adding power consumption so there was no push to do so. Now we have these use cases:

- Electrification of th entire transport sector.

- Heat pumps in homes (or large ones for community heating systems) and for industrial processes

(- generation of green hydrogen for fertilizer production and use in industry)

If you look at countries that are really forcing this (like China) then you're seeing a 5% YoY increase in power production (and still accelerating). They will be done with a 100% increase in less than 20 years, Other countries will take a bit longer but not by much - simply because it's economically sensible.

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/iqisoverrated]

That's a good point, things have changed.

I would add to your list data centers, which like it or not, I think will prove to be another big source of new demand.

Where I would push back is, if we take the post COVID / post Ukraine war, when all of these new demands can be said to have shown up, we're still not seeing much of a trend in increasing per capita electricity demand / generation in Europe. It's basically a flat line.

My strong suspicion is, everyone says Europe is an emergency: climate emergency, energy security emergency, and a energy cost emergency. But then those same people don't act like it's an emergency. In an energy emergency, you take all the electrons you can get.

Idk if we're seeing that attitude.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

Not so sure on data centers. I see no indication that their business case is panning out (AI companies are hemorrhaging money like there is no tomorrow with very little in terms of a path to profitability). I suspect hat this is a sector that will implode a bit in the coming years.

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/iqisoverrated]

It's coming to the Nordics right now where power is cheap / plentiful. But of course it all trickles down. That's power that then can be exported to the UK or to Germany via Denmark or to the baltics.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116 → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

“What Chinese are doing” So you say a new coal plant in europe every few days, well, it’s technically possible. But why would you do that?

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116]

More the part of "35+ nuclear plants under construction, and the majority of the world's new solar, wind, and HVDC transmission."

If Europe really was following that path, nuclear plants would be operating / constructed en masse in places like Germany, the UK, and Poland; huge wind and solar farms would be built in North Africa with energy shipped to southern Europe by under seas high voltage cable.

Side note: coal sucks and I hope Asia gets off it as quickly as possible. But it's much better for emissions and energy security to run an EV on a grid with (domestic) coal than it is to run an ICE vehicle. China's decision to continue building coal, albeit using lower and lower capacity, is defensible if it means electrifying their economy.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116 → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

It’s all relative to size, their supposedly huge nuclear investments are not going to be a big part of their mix (like France).

And construction en masse in the UK and Germany is not realistic, they are not newly industrialised countries rapidly escaping mass poverty. Their energy policies have to be near”replacement” unlike “addition” in China. To replace renewables with base power (coal) and on-demand power (natural gas) is much more difficult. In other words, to generate first %10 of electricity from solar is much easier than to reach %20, which is much easier than %30.

Same is true for electrification in many sectors. It’s easier to build homes heated with heat pumps or district heating, if you build most of your cities from scratch at modern times, not so easy to do in center of Paris.

Although having gdp per capita much higher than China, Europe has less emissions per capita, and the trend is downwards (while in China, if the systemic limit is reached is still questionable).

[u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh → u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116]

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

Europe is industrialized. But it is not electrified!

If we really earnestly believe that our goal is to electrify all of vehicle traffic, residential space heating, residential water heating, and low and medium industrial heat...

Then you are talking about a scenario whereby electricity use per capita might double, triple or even more. Yes, your primary energy use in total might stay the same, but in the electricity sector you want your country to look like a developing nation. Because in many ways, it is!

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116 → u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh]

Yes, but it’s the other way around. Build the capacity so that consumption would follow is not suitable for market dynamics. Demand should be so high that investors would run into building utility. Same with the EVs, it’s never a supply issue (in the long-run)

Edit: for now electricity demand is increasing veeery slowly that “all-of-the-above” kind of Chinese mix is not necessary. Additional renewables more than cover the demand increase i.e. replace existing fossil fuel supply. You can be sure that europe would also go all-in with whatever source if electricity demand was growing 5-7 percent every year (including gas, coal, oil if necessary you name it)

[u/iqisoverrated → u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116]

The Chinese aren't building coal power plants for 24/7 use. These serve the same function as gas power plants in Europe ( backup during dark doldrums). China doesn't have a lot of domestic gas but lots of coal...so from an energy autonomy standpoint that's sensible.

[u/Stratoveritas2 → u/FiveFingerDisco]

So what - in 2006 I had a flip phone. The price of solar panels is approximately 1/20 today of what it was 20 years ago, while Europe’s gas costs more. Fundamentally different economics.

Building solar in north Africa’s deserts will produce consistent solar energy near year round including times in winter when northern Europe is blanketed by cloud. HVDC cables make long distance transport possible. Additionally, solar can likely be developed faster at scale than Europe where industrial scale solar will run into permitting bottlenecks and political conflict over competition with other land use.

[u/manjmau]

Spain is working on it.

[u/TheRuneMeister]

Just…don’t

[u/Gold-Loan3142]

Proposals to carry electricity by HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) cables thousands of miles from sunny countries to less sunny countries, have been around for sometime. Examples include the DESERTEC projects https://desertec.org/en/ and the XLinks Morocco-to-UK Power Project designed to deliver 8% of Great Britain’s current electricity needs https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/

Typically they are blocked by short-term cost preferences for using fossil-fuels and lobbying for nuclear despite its greater long-term expense (its 100,000 year costs of guarding waste, association with WMD and resulting costs of wars, accidents, and long delays and cost overruns).

So it is exciting that the EU is now taking this on. All the technology required exists and is already in use - both photovoltaic solar and Concentrating Solar Power 'CSP' (which focuses the sun's heat to generate power via steam turbines), plus undersea HVDC cables.

Some comments are "why doesn't Europe just install more solar at home?". The answer is the seasonal variability of solar in Europe compared to N Africa. As anyone with practical experience of solar will know, it really likes direct sun! Yes it still works under grey skies but at a fraction of its peak output. So it is that with the long winter nights and grey skies of winter, you get very little compared to summer. To give you an example, the panels on my UK roof for the last 15 years give about six-times less energy in winter than in summer.

That is why, while of course local solar is great, having solar further south is a valuable way to supplement it. North Africa and the middle east have steadier sun throughout the year, and if east-west links are also created, the hours per day during which generation is possible is extended. CSP plants are also capable of some energy storage - the heat is stored in salts and used to generate steam for the turbines at night - and again, this is existing technology. However battery technology is advancing so fast that PV plus batteries may be the preferred solution - great that we have multiple options.

[u/Direct-Translator-75]

Even if it makes financial sense, don't. We've seen how being dependent on other countries can turn into a ticking time bomb within no time. Genuinly, I'm 100% up for renewables but something in my feels like this really isn't the way.

[u/Gold-Loan3142 → u/Direct-Translator-75]

Energy independence is a good aim, but we are a long way short of that in Europe. These projects differ from fossil-fuels, since the latter can be put in ships and exported anywhere, but the solar electricity generated by the former, can come only to Europe (i.e. where the cables go) or used locally. So it is a mutual dependency: if the supply is interrupted, the supplying countries lose export earnings and Europe loses electricity.

It's also in Europe's interest to maintain healthy economies that can offer jobs, in the region to its south - and many countries in that region will need an alternative to oil/gas sales.

[u/Direct-Translator-75 → u/Gold-Loan3142]

I mean if it's really that difficult to become independent then I guess... But we should strive for independence as much as we can and be able to handle ourselves were this Africa EU link to be severed.

[u/Left-Dirt737]

pero si en España hay lugares con mas de 300 dias de sol

[u/Gold-Loan3142 → u/Left-Dirt737]

Es cierto. Pero, ¿quiere España albergar todos los paneles solares que Europa necesita?

[u/Jack1101111]

old and good idea !
but wouldnt some guerrilla or terrorist sabotage it ?
also, it should stay on very long poles! and the dust...

[u/Gold-Loan3142 → u/Jack1101111]

Yes, and it's not only an old idea but an old reality. Some plants are decades old, but the technology keeps on improving so the case gets stronger. Here's a plant in Morocco. And they do clean off the dust!

I suppose terrorism is possible, but solar plants are very spread out targets and the worst they could do is interrupt operation for a bit, That's unlike oil or nuclear installations which could create a major environmental disaster if attacked, and on which we currently rely.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Ebb1116 → u/Gold-Loan3142]

He is talking about the undersea cables, the chokepoint of the system, not an attack possibility on panels

[u/johnny_51N5]

We don't even need it. Get solar on all the roofs and all the parking slots and there, probably half of that is alread more than enough.

Then we need battery and wind power especially for night and winter. Solar and wind balance eachother out beautifully

[u/Some-Dragonfruit-817]

Should've stayed imperial then