HUFFPOST BUSINESS
Vivian Norris
In the desert of Southern Tunisia, a group of renewable energy entrepreneurs, NUR Energie Ltd, and their Tunisian joint venture partner, Top Oilfield Services, are creating what may just be the most ambitious solar power renewable energy project to date. Along with the endorsement of the Desertec Foundation, NUR Energie has launched the TuNur project to export solar energy from North Africa to Europe, linking Tunisia to Italy via a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Cable and into the Italian electricity grid in order to supply a constant 2,000 MW of electricity. When completed, TuNur is set to be the world’s largest solar energy project. And with the menacing reality of climate change, limited traditional energy reserves and memories of recent nuclear and oil disasters, renewable energy is no longer the choice of idealists, but a simple necessity. We as a human race cannot afford to not go full speed ahead with projects such as this.
What is so unique about this project is that it is a true South-North collaboration which is taking a profound look at not only the socioeconomic benefits the collaboration can bring (the TuNur projects that the project will create an estimated 20,000 much needed jobs in Tunisia), but also taking into consideration environmental impacts which have affected the technology chosen (CSP solar) and the overall design of the project. In order to not add to the desertification process, TuNur will make use of very little water and will recycle in a closed system the steam produced by the process of the array of mirrors reflecting sunlight to a tower storage unit thereby turning the Sahara into a resource which can drive both the local economies as well as satisfy growing demand for low carbon electricity.
Unlike other ambitious projects, where idealism, high costs and bad timing, came before the practical realities of setting up massive solar pipelines, NUR Energie’s TuNur project arrives right on time. The combination of the horrific incident at Fukushima which forced Germany and other European nations to either decide to phase out nuclear energy and the increasing need to meet EU guidelines on renewables in the years to come, means that TuNur’s ability to make up for what will be an increased demand is being recognized by the likes of the World Bank, the European Commission. Other entities which stand to gain from this initiative include Brightsource Energy Inc (who was represented in Tunis by former Ambassador to Morocco, Tom Riley) and the Tunisian people themselves. The TuNur project will not simply be supplying electricity to Europe, but will also be providing industrial and economic development to the local community.
Perhaps one of the most interesting and positive outcomes of most of NUR Energie’s projects is how they are working hand in hand with those from the oil industry to make use of one another’s knowledge and skills, as well as combining assets, even converting polluting industries and their waste, into renewable energy locales. This rising from the ashes approach is not only realistic, but also the best way to bring the more traditional energy sector (with its 8 trillion USD annual turnover and many hundreds of millions of subsidies) to the renewable energy table.
Kevin Sara, the CEO of NUR Energie Ltd, said something to me at the conference in Tunis (hosted by the British Ambassador, Chris O’Connor) which resonated with my own Texas background and understanding of the oil industry when he asserted that, “Renewable energy folks are energy people, unlike the electrical utility types because we capture the source energy so we are more like the oil industry than the electric industry. People in the oil industry know how to take risks and build large infrastructure projects in hostile natural environments.”
Thus it makes sense to work with the likes of “wildcatters” and the private oil sector in Tunisia. Converting both the oil industry and phasing out nuclear is not easy, precisely because the economics created by recent disasters, such as Fukushima and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, entail massive cleanup projects which will last, in some cases decades, and bring in revenues to what are usually subsidiaries of the very kinds of companies which helped create the disasters in the first place.
The likes of Tunisia and Morocco (another locale where NUR Energie is setting up solar projects along with Greece, France and Italy) are not only growing economically and demographically, these countries are finding themselves rated higher than much-troubled Spain and Greece. The deep need for employment and an increasingly well-educated workforce is a major focus of discussion in Tunisia which is already in discussions about how best to train those who will educate the future generations of the renewable energy workforce. TuNur Ltd’s CEO in Tunisia will be Dr Till Stenzel, who is looking forward to “… working closely with the Tunisian authorities, as well as European utilities and governments” to make sure this project happens, and meets all of its ambitious, yet very much needed goals. Dr. Stenzel adds that TuNur is, “…natural production on an industrial scale.”
Along the same lines, the Desertec Foundation’s director, Dr. Thiemo Gropp, adds:
TuNur will benefit Tunisia by creating jobs and spurring investments in local education to aid the long term management of the plants after 2016… With this important first step, we are showing the world’s governments, industries and consumers that what many thought to be science fiction is actually science fact. We hope that this is the first of many more such plants to be built in the desert regions of the world.
This week in Tunis, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, saw visits from the likes of Google’s Eric Schmidt and the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, as local members of civil society from Tunisia, members of both the traditional and renewable energy private sector, young business leaders, diplomats, NGOs focused on Green issues, and journalists, primarily from Africa and the Arab world, gathered to discuss the TuNur project and exchange ideas about how North Africa can look towards a stronger more stable economic future through true win-win collaborations.
If the disturbing story of how one Tunisian citizen lost hope, his economic livelihood destroyed and his family’s future placed in peril, can serve as a lesson to what would best help the region, i.e. economic opportunity and growth, then may the memories of the martyrs of the Tunisian revolution live on through a better future for Tunisia and its people. Through utilizing local partners and management to develop the project, setting up new manufacturing industries (for example for the flat plate mirrors needed by TuNur), economic growth is assured. Up to five years of construction translating as up to 20,000, as well as hundreds of long term jobs and revenues for local governments, this North-South collaboration is not only needed but should be encouraged and replicated around the world.
The Tunisian partners, include Top Oil’s CEO, Fehti Somrani, who will serve as Director of TuNur Ltd., who is enthusiastic about how this project will help his country, “Proper investment and job creation, not simple charity can help alleviate the poverty and corruption that helped trigger the Arab Spring.”
With optimistic, collaborative and ambitious projects such as those being launched through collaborations between Europe and North Africa, and the public and private sector initiatives, the bright future of millions of people is assured.
