Desertec Initiative

The Desertec Initiative was launched in 2009 by a foundation and an industrial consortium, the Desertec Industrial Initiative, bringing together major European utilities, engineering firms and financial institutions around a concept for large-scale solar and wind generation in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, transmitted to European demand centers over new high-voltage direct current lines. The initiative attracted significant early attention as a vision for decarbonizing European electricity supply while fostering North African economic development, but it struggled to secure the necessary intergovernmental agreements, financing and transmission infrastructure. Most of the founding industrial partners withdrew from the consortium by the mid-2010s, and while smaller elements of the original vision, including Morocco's own solar buildout, proceeded independently, the initiative's original continental scope was never realized as envisioned.