DESERTEC FOUNDATION

www.desertec.org
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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Making the
global transition
to renewables
a reality:
The DESERTEC
Foundation
2
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As Doctor Thiemo Gropp, director and co-founder of the

DESERTEC Foundation says, DESERTEC is not one project,
one goal or a one-size-fits all answer to generating renewable
energy. With its ever-growing network of academic, industrial
and economic initiatives throughout the world today, it is really
more of a gateway to making future global transition to renewable
energy use possible more quickly and efficiently that it might be
if left alone to develop amongst the other energy markets today.
The Foundation is an extensive map of international supporter
companies, partners and divisions, geared towards making those
incremental changes we need to be able to go renewable now.
Gropp met with IRJ to give us further insight into DESERTEC’s
growing audiences—from governmental support, to big business
backing, to the many who financially and philosophically support
this largely voluntarily-financed enterprise—and talk about what
we need to do today to further our change to renewable energy
sourcing tomorrow.
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Nuala Gallagher: Let’s look at how the

DESERTEC Foundation began, dating back be-
yond its founding in 2009 and how you came to
be a co-founder.
Dr. Thiemo Gropp: DESERTEC is a vision, a
global concept that is much older than 2009. It
has been developed for many years now between
scientists from the German Aerospace Centre,
Club of Rome and the TREC Network (Trans-Med-
iterranean Renewable Energy Corporation Net-
work). All of this work has fused in the DESERTEC
Foundation, and now we are a highly recognised
organisation, but all of this work that has been
done in the past has been done and we ought to
attribute to that.
I myself worked as an entrepreneur for more
than 10 years in the high-tech industries and was
a big fan of renewable energy during that time.
I was looking into the field all of the time, got
in contact with some DESERTEC activists, and
realised that this is not just a really good idea, it
can be a big step towards a global solution. I got
involved more and more and became a co-found-
er. After a while I joined the board of directors of
the Foundation.
NG: Let’s look at the breadth of the Founda-
tion’s work today. DESERTEC is often strongly
associated with climate change and renewable
incentives, but further research suggests that the
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foundation’s goals and approach are much wider

ranging than tackling this issue alone.
Dr.TG: DESERTEC is a global vision and that
is very important. It’s about the transition from
fossil and nuclear fuels to renewables and this is
one of the biggest challenges we’re going to face.
It’s not just connected to climate, it’s connected
to water, to food, to social stability and security
and more. It’s going to be a widespread field. Of
course, it is a concept that includes global and
local solutions—central and decentralised. We as
a foundation are talking to all of the relevant par-
ties in political, economical and academic society.
We feel that we all have to work in one boat and
pull the same strings. This, of course, includes
the power industries and their role in society.
NG: Let’s look at the stage of development of
the DESERTEC technology today. Which areas of
the world are in focus and where is DESERTEC as
a concept most active?
Dr.TG: First of all you have to consider that
the technical solutions are on the table. Of
course there will be challenges in regards to
up-scaling and industrialisation and so on. But
this will happen within the renewable energy
industry and in doing so, costs will be driven
down. In Europe and the U.S. there are quite a
few projects successfully working, including the
capability to produce electricity at night which
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is quite important if you want to replace coal
generated electricity and similar. At the same
time it is a big chance for North African/MENA
countries to produce power for their own needs
and that will be a big demand over the next
10/20/30 years, and also to produce power for
export: To industrialise the country, develop the
country and become a player in the industrial
energy market— and also to set up technology
industries, create jobs and improve education
in the country.
This has been recognised with help from
the DESERTEC movement. For example, Tunisia
and Morocco have set up solar power plans with
concrete goals in setting up certain amounts
of capacity over the next decade. This is one of
the successes already made by the movement. I
can’t say when exactly such a plant will be built,
but we are certainly on the right track.
NG: I read that more than 30 European
companies have joined the DESERTEC Industrial
Initiative and Medgrid plans on doing feasibility
studies within the next three years for a grid for
importing electricity to Europe by 2020. How will
and is DESERTEC involved in that?
Dr.TG: The Medgrid concept, DESERTEC
concept and also the Mediterranean Solar Plan
are all complimentary approaches. Of course,
you have to have power plants but you have to
have transmission too. This is a big issue which
Medgrid is focusing more. Whatever the final
setting will be, we are very much in favour of
this initiative because it gives additional power
to this movement, so DESERTEC is very positive
about that. I know that the Industrial Initiative Dii
GmbH, of which we as the DESERTEC Foundation
are a shareholder, has an agreement in place
with Medgrid. There are talks going on, mutually
beneficial collaborations being set up, and we
think that all of these approaches are compli-
mentary. Also, if you look at the Mediterranean
Solar Plan which is more of a political initiative
and has to be filled with content, all these move-
ments guide us in the right direction. I think it
is important to see it’s not just about building a
plant—it’s about creating the conditions to build
a lot of plants in the future. This means look-
ing at the regulatory conditions and how we can
support the sustainable development of such an
industry, e.g. do transmission, work on feed-in
and pricing—and pricing is particularly important
during the early years where it helps to have a
mechanism to cover the cost gaps. Then in the
future, with price reduction and other factors,
this cost gap becomes smaller and the markets
drive the process quite quickly from then on.
In general we very much appreciate all of the
different initiatives with regards to renewable
 FEBRUARY 2011 • The International Resource Journal
energy because they all go in the right direction.
We think that in order to reach the goals set for
renewable energy, a lot of different activities have
to be followed and that will of course not mean
just one project, but a combination of different
technologies. It will be CSP, photovoltaic, wind,
water, and other renewables combined. We think
that all such initiatives are very welcome.
NG: I also read that the DESERTEC University
Network was recently founded. How is that going,
and within education why is this integral to ad-
vancing the concept and work of the DESERTEC
Foundation today?
Dr.TG: As I mentioned, it’s more than about
building plants and transmission lines. If you want
to foster sustainable development within the renew-
able energy industry you need education, technol-
ogy, research and know-how transfer. Education is
one of the major issues and as a foundation with
long-term goals, not one that is profit-oriented, we
think that setting up an international network which
is not only in the MENA— although it started there—
to create an environment of renewable thinking
in the world will be very favourable long-term. This
is our second approach after the founding of the
Industrial Initiative Dii; to found an academic initia-
tive that complements our work in the academic
world, brings institutions together from all over the
world, and supports research, education, technol-
9
ogy and know-how transfer. That has begun. Quite
a few institutes have already joined with more to
come, and it is set to be a valuable contribution to
the challenges that we have.
NG: I read that German Chancellor Angela
Merkel has expressed an interest in seeing the
DESERTEC project become a reality, and Ger-
many and Algeria have agreed to establish a
joint economic commission on renewable energy
sources which is part of DESERTEC. Is this a sign
of things to come, and how have you been work-
ing with governments in-country throughout the
globe to garner support for what is clearly an
impressive and ambitious project?
Dr.TG: We think that the political support with-
in the European/North African/Middle East renew-
able challenge will be extremely important. There
are so many countries involved and many hurdles
to overcome with regard to regulatory affairs and
political questions. We highly appreciate this sup-
port from the German government, and also that
of other governments. It was great news to hear
that Chancellor Merkel got personally involved in
this issue— that she officially announced the sup-
port [from the government] and meaningfulness
of this vision within German politics.
NG: I read that DESERTEC is the world’s
most ambitious solar project, which could be a
little vague and down to reporters taking creative
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license. What would you say are the key strengths
to the concept which people need to understand?
Dr.TG: [Laughs] We always stress that DE-
SERTEC is not a single project. There will not be
one company, one contractor or one group that
builds thousands and thousands of plants. This
is a vision in order to accelerate the transition
to renewable energy. Of course, it’s a powerful
movement with political, society, academic and
economy components. It will become a busi-
ness driven by different aspects, but in the end
you will not have thousands of plants with our
label on them. If we can create the possibility to
advance this global market, we can help plants
to get set up more quickly than they would with
a regular market development.
NG: In terms of project development, how far
along is your work today? Please tell us about
some of the key milestones you have already
achieved, and outline DESERTEC’s strategic
goals for 2011 and beyond.
Dr.TG: The foundation has, of course, always
focused on our overall goal; transition to renew-
able energy, climate protection—one of the main
drivers—water and food security issues; differ-
ent aspects that go far beyond a pure energy
topic. It’s not all about per kilowatt hour; it goes
much further than that. All of these concerns
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are addressed by the foundation, and also the viduals and financially, for the foundation, so
economic effects of our global transition to re- that we can do what we do more efficiently and
newables including advantages and downsides with even more effectiveness.
for those involved, the ones using fossil ener-
gies, those using and developing renewables www.desertec.org
and more. In 2011, we are looking at important
regions where in the future the race for a global
transition will be partially decided. One region is
Asia where we try to bring in and offer our input
to help and support this movement and change.
Going forward, we are based mainly on volun-
tary supporters and activists who are convinced
that this is something that has to be done. We
appreciate greatly all of their support, as indi-
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