North African nations will gather in Tunis to discuss the region’s potential to scale up concentrated solar power and establish the region as a pioneer among emerging economies.

The consultation workshop to be held in the Tunisian capital from October 21 to 22 is organized by the African Development Bank with the World Bank, International Finance Corporation and the Energy Sector Management Program.

It is a follow-up to a joint consultation workshop held in Morocco in June which looked into development options for concentrated solar power plants in the region.

The second workshop will tackle increasing energy demand due to increasing revenues and urbanization in North Africa, as well as facilitation of green energy trade, regional support, production of green jobs, securing energy supply, diversification of fuel sources and environmental advantages.

Advantages of concentrated solar power include lower cost, higher scalability, higher consistency to utilities’ generation model and higher availability compared with solar photovoltaic power.

North Africa is ideal for concentrated solar power scale-up due to its plentiful sunshine, low precipitation, and adequate unused land situated in close proximity to countries with high energy needs.

North Africa has already installed 20-megawatt projects in Morocco, Egypt and Algeria using a technology that allows solar energy to expand heat from a gas turbine plant.





-   Sunshine T. Santiago