Does It Make Sense to Cover the Desert with Solar Panels?
Whether solar dwells in deserts or cities, efficiency is key
On the face of it, the answer seems a no-brainer. The ‘electrification of everything’ movement demands that we replace our fossil-fuel economy with electricity. But this only makes sense from an environmental viewpoint if the means of production is derived from wind, solar, hydro and other renewable, clean energy sources. This means we will need to ramp up electricity production from such means on a massive scale to meet increasing demand, while at the same time we decommission coal-fueled power stations.
So, given that we need more clean energy, covering large tracts of seemingly barren land where the sun is pretty much always shining with solar panels seems an excellent solution. In fact, solar farms in desert locations already exist. In the Mojave desert, an ever-expanding photovoltaic sea has been growing for the last few years, and the Riverside East Solar Energy Zone (SEZ), the largest zone in California, now covers 150,000 acres, 10 times the size of Manhattan.
In Australia, the country’s largest solar farm, located in Queensland’s Western Downs region, comprises more than 1 million solar panels, and can provide power for 235,000 homes. It is connected to the Queensland grid by a 275kV line.
In the UK – not noted for its deserts - Xlinks First Ltd plans to supply almost 8% of Britain’s current power demand from new solar and wind projects in Morocco. The proposal combines a 77 square mile solar farm with a 580 square mile wind farm supported by a 22.5 GWh / 5 GW battery, resulting in a plant with a capacity of 11.5 GW. It would also require nearly 2,500 miles of undersea cabling – the longest in the world by some distance – to deliver the power from the African continent to the north-west of continental Europe. However ambitious this project seems, it has serious backing with completion planned for 2030.
However, large-scale desert solar installations need to be implemented with sensitivity, since there are environmental concerns. Certain florae that thrive in desert conditions can play a significant role in carbon sequestration. In her book, ‘The Desert Underground,’ botanist Robin Kobaly argues that the enormous root networks of desert plants – which can survive for up to 10,000 years in the case of the creosote bush – function as an “enormous carbon sink.
Aside from environmental concerns, massive, remote solar farms present huge technical challenges associated with storage, conversion and power transmission losses, which in the case of the proposed UK/Morrocco link have been estimated at 13 percent.
So, in addition to encouraging the proliferation of desert solar farms we should also consider other options. British author Will Lockett claims in his 2023 book, ‘50 Ways to Save the World,’ that “converting just 20 percent of urban areas (to solar) around the world (would) allow us to fully power ourselves.” In California, since 2020, it is mandatory for newly constructed low-rise residential buildings to have solar photovoltaic (PV) systems installed. This includes single-family homes, condominiums and apartment buildings less than three stories high. Then in 2023, the California Energy Commission (CEC) implemented a change to the California Energy Code requiring many new commercial buildings to have solar panels and battery storage. Other countries are currently implementing or framing similar legislation, and other solutions may be even more imaginative. Car parks could be covered in solar panels, and even solar-paved roads have been proposed.
Whether society decides to opt for remote desert solar farms or local installations powering a single home – or more likely a mix of both – efficiency is one of the major challenges that solar energy installations must address – not only from a technical, but also from an economic standpoint.
Power Integrations’ gate-driver products are a good fit for such ambitious solar programs. Highly-integrated SCALE™-2 gate drivers enable a significant reduction in both component count and PCB size over typical solutions based on discrete driver stages. Integration also results in increased reliability, as fewer components mean fewer potential causes for malfunction. And of course, all the devices are fully protected with sophisticated overvoltage systems.
Power Integrations has solutions that can be deployed at the centralized converters situated at the solar installations themselves, such the SCALE-iFlex™ gate driver family (LT, NTC, XLT – depending on module chosen), and for high-voltage DC transmission to get the power to where it is needed, such as the SCALE-2 Plug-and-Play Drivers (1SP0635, 1SP0335 and Press Pack 1SP0351 - again, module dependent).
