Renewable Energies to Provide Sustainable Development Perspectives for North Africa: The Sahara Wind Project

Abstract

The trade winds that blow along the Atlantic coast from Morocco to Senegal represent one of the largest and most productive wind potentials available on earth. Because of the extremely harsh climatic conditions, populations in these areas are concentrated in a few remote cities where economic activities such as mining or fishing can be sustained. Although growing, the local electricity demand remains very low, and unless this vast renewable energy resource can be utilized in a broader context to supply regional electricity markets, economic development alternatives within the region will be limited. This by itself can be considered a threat to regional security, as a lack of economic development over vast desert areas increases the exposure of the region to illegal activities such as trafficking which may have a potential to grow into broader transnational security threats. While local urban centers are witnessing very high unemployment rates, the region is also under pressure from sub-Saharan migrant population fluxes. Ideally, the supplying of regional electricity markets could pave the way for an integrated development of the region, as trade wind generated electricity can be transferred via High Voltage Direct Current infrastructures at relatively low costs. Such energy options are likely to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel generated electricity for Spain and Portugal which boast Europe’s highest CO₂ emission increases from Kyoto’s 1990 base reference levels. In creating an integrated, job generating, socially acceptable renewable energy industry, such option could also eliminate the need for countries like Morocco or Portugal to consider Nuclear Energy as a viable option for meeting their growing electricity needs, knowing that Spain has suspended the construction of new nuclear power plants for over 2 decades. This paper aims at describing the renewable energy options of countries in North Africa integrated to the Euro-Mediterranean power market, and their potential impact on the region’s security.