Concentrated Solar Power

Import of sustainable energy from the Sahara

The Netherlands aims to be getting 10 percent of all its energy from sustainable sources by 2020. Increasing costs, together with dwindling fossil fuel reserves, make harnessing the world’s natural and renewable energy sources, such as sunlight, more attractive. The main challenge associated with solar energy is the availability of the supply, specifically the insolation level in Northern European regions. This drawback threatens the viability of using solar power. Generally speaking, in parts of the world where levels of insolation are high, population density and energy consumption are low. Furthermore, high-insolation regions tend to lack the infrastructure needed to transport and/or export solar energy. Solar power initiatives are consequently unusual in the parts of the world with the most sunlight.

Project
This project investigated the technical feasibility and economic viability of importing solar energy from a high insolation region, the Sahara, to the EU. The energy flows has also been studied. This involved looking at the losses and the various potential benefits of energy being available where and when it is required. The project also considered the best logistic set-up for transmission/transport and for the input of energy to the European electricity network.

The harnessing method will be Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). The harnessed energy will be transferred to a storage material, utilizing the metal-metal oxide cycle, for example. It can then be transported to an energy recovery site connected to the European electricity grid. It will be possible to recover the stored energy either in the form of electricity or as thermal energy. The storage metal will oxidize during the energy recovery process. The metal oxide will then be re-used at the CSP plant in a metal regeneration process, producing oxygen as a by-product. The storage metal will be readily transportable over large distances and there will be no ‘self discharge’ problems.

Benefits
Besides clear benefits such as the absence of ‘self discharge’ issues and geographical restrictions, the potentially high availability of CSP would also have efficiency benefits.
Generation
> CSP, direct to electricity and conversion of metal oxide to metal
Transmission/Transport
> Transmission by HVDC cable to the European high-voltage network
> Bulk transport of metal and return transport of metal oxide
Input to the EU system
> HVDC link with day-night cycle
> Time-shift link based on metal-metal oxide cycle in Africa
> Local conversion of metal into metal oxide using thermal and electrochemical processes

Project coordinator
> KEMA, the Netherlands

Project details
> SenterNovem EOS-NEO
> Duration: January 2009 – December 2009