Brussels, 11/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 11 December, the Energy Ministers of the countries of the euro-Mediterranean area met in Brussels, on the eve of the Energy Council. Their meeting was in the UfM (Union for the Mediterranean) format and was co-chaired by Commissioner Günther Oettinger and Jordanian Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Mohamed Hamed. The main item on the agenda was the approval of the elements to implement the Mediterranean “solar plan”. These elements, which have been defined within a “master plan”, were already approved in June of this year by the Euro-Mediterranean senior civil servants tasked with steering dialogue between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
The solar plan is one of the key projects of this cooperation between the EU and its neighbours to the south. The ambition, stated in 2008, to create a vast electricity production network on the African shore of the Mediterranean and to “export” it to the northern side has come up against the realities of a European market which is still very little regulated.
The question of the price of the energy ultimately supplied, the state of the networks of interconnections, the technological maturity of solar power and, lastly, difficulty in raising significant interest on the part of investors has dampened the initial enthusiasm. All that remains for the project is to fall back on public funding, particularly resources from the EU budget and from national or international financial institutions tasked with development issues. However, the UfM is sticking to its commitment of attracting money from private investors. This prospect is, a priori, hard to envisage as the principal “sales” argument, the export of electricity to Europe, appears unrealistic and even the major project Desertec seems to have given up on this idea.
For the UfM, sticking to its gamble - on this project in particular - will be concrete proof of the survival of a joint structure still dogged by scepticism over its chances of succeeding other than as a technical “annex” to European Commission. These doubts have been reinforced against the backdrop of a politically troubled Mediterranean.
Readers may recall that the “master plan”, which was proposed for scrutiny by the ministers in charge of both the renewable energy and energy efficiency dossiers, contains the promise, still theoretical, of developing new renewable energy production capacity on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean between now and 2020, in the order of 20 GW. (FB/transl.fl)