Looking deeper into the pitfalls and promise of Desertec at Dii conference in Cairo. Green Prophet’s Tafline is there and reports from the field. Instead of scrambling to find funds and legislative support for the Desertec initiative, a handful of people gathered at the Dii conference in Cairo to explore the project’s overall environmental sustainability. […]
This incredible solar-powered artificial leaf that creates ice and water in Egypt’s Sahara desert is well on its way to becoming a reality! We have learned time and again what a mistake it is to see the desert as a giant wasteland, a fact that artist Ap Verheggen intends to drive home with the incredible SunGlacier […]
Complete kits are now available for installing home solar energy systems
While most experts say it is hard to know what is really going on with Saudi oil supplies, “What we do know is that, for whatever reason, Saudi Arabia produced 600,000 fewer barrels each day in 2010 than it did in 2005, and with growing Saudi consumption of their own oil, the drop in exports from […]
A solar plant, which is the sole source of electricity for a village in Hebron, has received demolition orders from the Israeli Civil Administration Mneizel is a Palestinian village located in Hebron in the West Bank. In 2009, the 400 residents living there were lucky enough to be the recipients of a project funded by […]
Could sharing a transmision grid for renewable energy bring Arabs and Jews together? Invited to speak by the Israeli branch of CIGRE in Israel, Jean Kowal, executive vice president of Medgrid suggested that the road to Middle East peace could be a shared and interconnected electrical grid that facilitates the addition of more green energy. The […]
Beep beep! This solar powered taxi intends to tour the globe on zero gas and a full tank of sunshine. Swiss inventor Louis Palmer‘s solar powered taxi will be rolling into Israel next week, after having traveled to over 40 countries and through 60,000 kilometers already. Without a single drop of standard fuel. Powered by […]
Iran’s solar-powered Gazelle 2, hopes to place well in trans Australia trials Iran’s Gazelle 2 solar powered electric car may not have massaging seats, but it certainly looks better than the Palestinian-built solar car in Hebron. The sleek one-seater that weighs only 150 kg, was unveiled at Teheran University by the car’s project manager, Dr. […]
It’s official: energy experts predict that solar power will be the most important source of energy in the Middle East within the next decade There’s no getting away from the fact that the Middle East is sunny – as such, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that solar power is the way to […]
BrightSource Energy is making a big bet on CSP while others switch to PV The third huge US solar project from BrightSource Energy is its largest yet. At a whopping 750 MW it is the size of three or four US coal or gas plants. Its Rio Mesa Solar Electric Generating Facility in California will use the solar tower technology it inherited from Israel's Luz, its parent company (Luz Rises Again as BrightSource for California) in which a field of mirrors on poles reflects sunlight onto a tower to create steam to drive a turbine to make electricity. But it comes at a time when many utility-scale solar companies are switching to PV (photovoltaic) solar - those traditional rooftop solar panels that most people associate with solar - from Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) such as this. Why?
Egypt now leads all the MENA nations in attractiveness for renewable energy investment through the EU's Clean Development Mechanism and Morocco - which already has a grid linked up to Europe - has become a key Desertec investment point since announcing its plans to provide 42% of its own electricity from solar, which is by far the most ambitious plan in the world. What's more, as a kingdom, there is no opposition party to sabotage renewable energy as the Republican party does in the US.
A coal utility in Israel and the global leader in solar panel production form a joint project Everybody knows that China is the world leader in cheap solar. By contrast, Israel has barely begun to tap the global solar market. Yet the world’s largest solar panel producer in China, Suntech, has invited Israel’s state-owned electric […]
Now Masdar builds solar with a 75% capacity factor, almost as much as nuclear Masdar, the holistic and progressive renewable energy company from the UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi, and SENER, a leading engineering and construction firm in Spain have formed a joint venture, Torresol Energy, that just inaugurated their Gemasolar Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project; the first commercial plant […]
The world's fifth largest cement producer, with an annual production capacity of approximately 75 million tons of cement, Italcementi Group is pioneering a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant at the site of one of its cement plants - in Ait Baha, Morocco. The advanced use of CSP in MENA region industries is becoming more frequent as the oil age draws to a close.
For both the interim Mediterranean Solar Plan and Desertec, the creation of renewable policy and renewable job skills development in both the potential energy-supplying countries and the potential energy-receiving countries is necessary. The Mediterranean Solar Plan represents an interim step towards Desertec. It aims to create 20 gigawatts’ worth of new renewable energy sources in MENA […]