Solar power investment in North Africa: Reducing perceived risks

Climate protection targets for mid-century imply a need to scale up European renewable power production to a level that may exceed the available land area within Europe's borders. One attractive solution, from a cost and feasibility perspective, is the development of large-scale concentrating solar power plants in North Africa and the Middle East. However, these developments are seen by many people as risky, in terms of both European energy security, and in terms of the risks faced by project developers. In this paper, we focus on the latter of theses issues. First, we examine the risks that project developers are most concerned about, and identify these as being associated not with terrorism and rogue state behavior, but rather with corruption and inefficient and unpredictable bureaucracies. Second, we identify a range of policy approaches that can reduce these risks, either by mitigating their consequences, or by seeking to eliminate their underlying causes. Third, we investigate the financial benefits of taking such steps to reduce or eliminate investment risks. We find the potential savings to European electricity consumers to exceed €200 billion.