The BBC has an update on Desertec's "deserts of gold" scheme for generating large amounts of solar thermal power in North Africa - Harnessing desert sun to power Europe.

It is a beguiling idea - harvest sunshine, and a little wind, from the empty deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, and use it to produce clean power for the region and for Europe.

Desertec, a group based in Germany with heavyweight commercial backers including Siemens and Deutsche Bank, says the scheme would also bring the regions around the Mediterranean closer together, while providing jobs and stability for the countries in the south.

It has chosen Morocco, which is embarking on its own ambitious solar programme, for its first "reference" project - a plant meant to show that its grand vision is feasible.

Desertec expects to see the first electricity flowing through undersea cables from Morocco to Spain as early as 2014.

But its stated goal - using desert power to supply up to 100% of local needs and up to 15% of European demand by 2050 - has attracted critics who question whether such a vision is possible, or even necessary.

No-one doubts the physical potential of the desert to generate renewable power.

According to a study by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a state agency that provided data used by Desertec, less than 1% of suitable land in the North Africa and the Middle East would be needed to cover the current electricity consumption of the region, as well as Europe.

Many countries with intense sunshine also have large tracts of uninhabited land.

But creating a power network presents a series of formidable problems, from nomads stealing solar components to the technological and political challenges of transporting and delivering electricity over such a vast area.

Paul Van Son, the Desertec Industrial Initiative's chief executive, stresses that his group has no detailed blueprint, but aims instead to create the broad conditions for a solar network to be developed.

"There is nothing which is unrealistic," he says.

"It's already happening today, there are installations in the deserts, solar installations, wind parks - it all works.

"There are electrical grids from Tunisia, Algeria for instance and Morocco to Spain and Europe. It's possible to transport electricity over long, long distances."

Desertec points to a pair of cables already installed between Morocco and Spain - though for now these are carrying power from north to south.

It says it will work closely with Medgrid, a French scheme to enable the construction of a Mediterranean transmission system.

Greentech Media reports that First Solar has joined the Desertec solar power initiative - First Solar Joins Desertec.

First Solar will participate in the massive Desertec project, one more stop along their plan toward world domination.

The Arizona-based manufacturer of cadmium telluride solar modules will provide know-how on how to build large-scale solar power plants. The Desertec initiative will attempt to build renewable power plants in the deserts of North Africa that will supply a significant amount of power to the Europe, the Middle East and North Africa by 2050. Photovoltaics, solar thermal, wind, and other technologies, along with experiments in carbon capture, will likely ultimately play a role in the project.

Siemens is one of the big drivers. Right now, everything is in the planning stages, but Desertec is shaping up to be one of the largest construction projects ever attempted. (More on utility scale solar parks will be one of the subjects at the Solar Summit 2010 taking place in Arizona later this month.)

Like SunPower, Suntech Power Holdings and other large solar manufacturers, First Solar hopes to get a growing portion of its revenue from building power plants and selling power. In this situation, a module maker effectively becomes its own customer. First Solar has already signed on to build a 2 megawatt solar power plant in Inner Mongolia and has projects completed and underway in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates.

Stewart Taggart of Desertec Australia and the solar thermal desalination company Acquasol, has recently started a new branch of Desertec for Asia.

The Desertec Asia plan (linking Australian solar thermal power, geothermal power and wind / wave energy, along with natural gas and coal seam gas into an expanded east Asian energy grid featured local solar, wind, geothermal and hyrdo-power resources as well) is summarised below - more detail can be found at "A Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure".

Imagine an interconnected, pan-Asian electricity and natural gas Infrastructure.

The system would distribute electricity from solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy from Australia to China. Natural gas and hydro would fill the gaps. The vision is big. So is climate change.

In Europe, the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative proposes that a series of concentrating solar power plants in North Africa could power the region and export surplus electricity to Europe.

A similar network built in Asia would generate energy market efficiencies, spur innovation and increase energy security.

Following this path, Asia could end up with networked electricity and natural gas backbone that would serve the region into the 22nd Century.

The plan involves connecting Asia through a 6,000-8,000 kilometer electricity and natural gas transmission system stretching from southern Australia to Japan and South Korea.

Australian surplus concentrating solar power, geothermal, wind and wave energy, along with natural gas, would flow northward to Indonesia. There, it would be joined by Indonesia's surplus natural gas, geothermal and hydro power.

The combined energy supplies, joined by Malaysian hydro, southeast Asian biomass and Mekong wind, would then be transmitted to China, Japan and South Korea through a 'non-discriminatory, common-carrier' infrastructure operated like a toll road.

Further north, China's Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang provinces could contribute solar and wind energy. In the East Asian Sea, networked offshore wind farms and wave and tide machines would contribute more energy. Regional natural gas and hydro energy supplies would 'load balance' the entire system in a hemispheric network managed as an highly-efficient whole.

Competitively accessible, non-discriminatory, low-emission energy generated and delivered through a regionally-interconnected, Pan-Asian energy infrastructure represents a market-based solution to climate change.

Stewart made the closing address at the Clean Energy Expo Asia Conference 2009, describing the Desertec Asia plan. Part 1 is embedded below - click on the links for Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Inhabitat has a post on the DESERTEC proposal for the Sahara, which continues to inch forward - $555 Billion Sahara Solar Energy Belt Takes Giant Step Forward. TreeHugger has a related post - The Sahara Forest Project Is a Visionary "Do".

A giant step has been made in what will be the world’s largest renewable energy project. While previously just a grand vision for the production of clean energy in the Saharan desert, the project now has a core group of backers and a signed agreement between 12 companies wanting to move forward with the $555 billion renewable energy belt. The 12 collaborators signed articles of association last week for the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII), which will work to bring more companies and groups on board as well as focus on regulations and conditions to get the project successfully completed and generating pure power from the sun.

The DESERTEC Foundation vision is to install 100 GW of solar power throughout Northern Africa, with the goal of supplying 15% of Europe’s energy demand with clean renewable power. So far a number of blue chip and powerful companies have signed on to be part of the project, including ABB, ABENGOA Solar, Cevital, DESERTEC Foundation, Deutsche Bank, E.ON, HSH Nordbank, MAN Solar Millennium, Munich Re, M+W Zander, RWE, SCHOTT Solar, and Siemens. The project will link multiple solar concentrating facilities around coastal North Africa and transmit most of the renewable energy through high-voltage DC lines to Europe. Additionally, desalination plants will be coupled with the solar concentrating plants to bring fresh water to people in Africa.

The Times has a story in the "deserts of gold" genre, confusing solar PV (panels) with concentrating solar thermal power - Solar panels in the Sahara 'could power the whole of Europe'. There is a new twist to the story now though, with North Africa's wind power potential also being touted.

All of Europe’s energy needs could be supplied by building an array of solar panels in the Sahara, the climate change conference has been told.

Technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider North Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy. By harnessing the power of the Sun, possibly in tandem with wind farms along the North African coastline, Europe could easily meet its 2020 target of generating at least 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

“It [North Africa] could supply Europe with all the energy it needs,” Anthony Patt, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, told scientists. “The Sun is very strong there and it is very reliable.

“There is a growing number of cost estimates of both wind and concentrated solar power for North Africa that start to compare favourably with alternative technologies. The cost of moving \ long distances has really come down.”

Dr Patt said only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, needed to be covered to extract enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. He told the conference that calculations show that a £50 billion investment by governments over the next ten years would be enough to make Saharan solar power an attractive and viable prospect for private investors.

Solar power uses mirrors to focus the Sun’s rays at a thin pipe containing either water or salt. The rays boil the water or turn the salt molten and the energy is extracted by using the heat to power turbines.

Trials of concentrated solar power are being planned for Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Dubai. Libya and Tunisia could also be considered as sources of European electricity.

Receiving energy from North Africa would, the conference heard, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which drive climate change by emitting carbon dioxide. The renewable source of energy would also mean that Europe relied less on Russia and the Middle East for fuel.

Attractive as Saharan solar power is, Dr Patt said, there remained the challenge of overcoming political hurdles, such as opposition from residents across Europe to having transmission cables installed near their homes. Piecemeal transmission networks were a further problem.

However, he was enthusiastic about the “fantastic wind resource” and the potential of putting wind farms along the North African coast. Winds created by the Sun heating the air are especially strong during the summer, when European wind turbines, including those in Britain, are at their least productive.