similar to that used at Ivanpah in the US Photo: BrightSource Energy Desert power for EU dream lives on with 4.5GW Tunisia plan by Andrew Lee (04 August 2017 Updated 04 August 2017 Plans for vast solar deployment in North Africa exporting clean power to Europe-an ambition as old as the solar industry but so far nothing more — inched forward with an application to the Tunisian government for a 4.5GW project. A consortium developing the TuNur project hopes to site huge arrays of concentrating solar power (CSP) generation with molten-salt storage in the Sahara desert in southwest Tunisia, exporting the electricity generated to Europe via future undersea transmission links to Malta — the target of a €1.6bn ($1.9bn), 250MW initial phase — Italy and France. The TuNur consortium is led by Nur Energie, a London-based solar developer whose backers include Low Carbon, a UK renewables investment group. TuNur CEO Kevin Sara claimed: “The site in the Sahara receives twice Tunisia warned PPA —aS much solar energy compared to sites in central Europe, thus for the ‘unbankable' as it same investment, we can produce twice as much electricity. ere wind and solar «14,4 subsidy-free world, we will always be a low-cost producer even when transmission costs are factored in.” Read more © the company’s filing to the Tunisian government includes plans for local industrial benefits in a country currently attempting to kick-start a domestic renewables programme that also makes provision for exports.But TuNur ~ which has been beating the drum for large-scale CSP in Tunisia for years - will need to address perennial questions over security, regional stability and the cost of large-scale CSP deployment against a background of ever-cheaper PV and wind generation. Desertec - the highest-profile attempt to site large-scale solar production in North Africa for export to help the EU meet its clean-energy ambitions — attracted big-name backers such as Siemens, E.ON and Bosch, before fizzling out in 2013. But last year’s opening of the I60MW Noor I plant in Morocco was hailed by CSP’s backers as evidence that the technology can have a viable role in the world’s sunniest desert regions.