World Bank to invest $5.5 billion in North African solar

The World Bank announced $5.5 billion dollars of investment money for North African solar power projects. Initial investments will be $750 million dollars from the Clean Technology Fund with the rest on the way from other sources. Planned to be completed by 2015, the project would span five countries and triple world wide concentrated solar power capacity. (Concentrated solar power concentrates solar energy to boil water and drive a turbine.)

Construction of the 11 facilities in the project is expected to commence in 2011.

In the U.S., such grandiose projects as the Hoover dam would be dwarfed in expense by this North African solar effort. Adjusted for inflation, the Hoover might cost $2.6 billion today. The North African project will cost twice that and generate less than the Hoover did in 1935. By 2020, the North African project should total 900 MW in capacity.

To put that in perspective, the facility producing the most power in the U.S. is the Palo Verde nuclear power station outside of Phoenix, Arizona. It cost $5.9 billion to build over the course of 12 years, though in today’s dollars $10 billion might be more accurate. It is rated at just over 3,700 MW, over four times as much as the aggregate of the proposed solar project. The North African facilities won’t generate nuclear waste, though.

The project will save (as compared to traditional power generation mixes) 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. This is the same as taking 600,000 gas burning vehicles off the road. A U.K. government operated site suggests over 10,000 jobs may be created by this project, though the World Bank declined to include this figure in its materials.

When completed, the project will span Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. It will provide power to nations in the area as well as to Europe, where most of the production jobs are likely to be sourced.

Figures on U.S. economic contributions are not currently available, though the U.K. claims to be contributing 56 million pounds or $91 million USD.

Though hardly the best bang for the buck in electricity, the project could change the economics and the quality of life for many in the region. If nothing else it will create a lot of economic activity in the solar industry and help drive down solar costs with an economy of scale. Let’s hope so because in the meantime, it isn’t cheap power and will only be producing during sunlight hours.

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