Could the Sahara be transformed into a solar farm?

In fact, around the world are all located in deserts or dry regions. it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in and that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe.

Could large solar farms in the Sahara Desert redistribute solar power?

Large solar farms in the Sahara Desert could redistribute solar power generation potential locally as well as globally through disturbance of large-scale atmospheric teleconnections, according to simulations with an Earth system model.

Can large-scale solar farms influence atmospheric circulation in the Sahara Desert?

Our Earth system model simulations show that the envisioned large-scale solar farms in the Sahara Desert, if covering 20% or more of the area, can significantly influence atmospheric circulation and further induce cloud fraction and RSDS changes (summarized in Fig. 7) across other regions and seasons.

Are solar farms causing inequal distribution of solar potential?

Although the impacts are modest on a global or continental scale, the potential inequalities resulting from the disturbance of hypothetical Sahara solar farms can still manifest in the unequal distribution of solar potential.

Do photovoltaic solar farms affect global solar power production?

This may further lead to disturbance in the global climate and hence the global solar power production. We aim to quantify the impacts of a large-scale deployment of photovoltaic solar farms in the Sahara on global solar power generation as a pilot case study, and investigate the underlying forcing mechanisms.

Could a desert be the best place to harvest solar power?

The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power – the most abundant and clean source of energy we have. Deserts are spacious, relatively flat, rich in – the raw material for the semiconductors from which solar cells are made — and never short of sunlight.