Sahara Solar Energy Research Center

Toward a New Global Energy System with the Combination of the Sun, Sand, and Superconductivity

Principal Investigator

- Visiting Prof. KOINUMA Hideomi
  Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo

ODA Recipient Country

People's Democratic Republic of Algeria

Research Institutions in Japan

The University of Tokyo / Hirosaki University / National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) / National Institute of Informatics (NII)

Research Institutions in Counterpart Country

University of Science and Technology, Oran (USTO), etc.

Adoption fiscal year

FY 2010

Research Period

5 Years

Overview of the Research Project

A major power project that uses the most abundant raw material on earth
Deserts such as the Sahara Desert, the world’s largest, cover vast areas of land, have an abundance of sunlight, and are a treasure-house of sand that contains large quantities of silica, the raw material for silicon. In this project, solar breeders (silicon factory + photovoltaic power plant) will be constructed in the desert, and the power that is produced will be used to construct more solar breeders. Then hightemperature superconducting power transmission systems that have little power transmission loss will be used to send the power to various parts of the world. The project represents an attempt to provide an ultimate solution to the world’s energy problem by transforming barren deserts into a new energy resource.

Studying purification of silica in sand and silicon manufacture in preparation for the project
Currently, the establishment of basic data is underway in anticipation of the project’s realization from cooperative basic research. Instead of introducing builtin technology, Japanese and Algerian researchers work together to discover new knowledge, including the development of new technologies for efficiently converting silica into silicon. Collection of the basic data required to enable high-temperature superconducting cables to pass through desert regions, and studies to analyze and separate the components of Sahara sand and to identify its untapped resources are also proceeding.