Disadvantages of Sahara Solar Project

Could teleconnections affect solar farms in the Sahara Desert?

Large-scale photovoltaic solar farms envisioned over the Sahara desert can meet the world's energy demand while increasing regional rainfall and vegetation cover. However, adverse remote effects resulting from atmospheric teleconnections could offset such regional benefits.

Could large solar farms in the Sahara Desert redistribute solar power?

Large solar farms in the Sahara Desert could redistribute solar power generation potential locally as well as globally through disturbance of large-scale atmospheric teleconnections, according to simulations with an Earth system model.

Can large-scale solar farms influence atmospheric circulation in the Sahara Desert?

Our Earth system model simulations show that the envisioned large-scale solar farms in the Sahara Desert, if covering 20% or more of the area, can significantly influence atmospheric circulation and further induce cloud fraction and RSDS changes (summarized in Fig. 7) across other regions and seasons.

Do Sahara solar farms affect global climate and vegetation cover?

However, by employing an advanced Earth-system model (coupled atmosphere, ocean, sea-ice, terrestrial ecosystem), we show the unintended remote effects of Sahara solar farms on global climate and vegetation cover through shifted atmospheric circulation.

Do solar farms increase temperature in the Sahara Desert?

It showed there could be unintended effects in remote parts of the land and ocean that offset any regional benefits over the Sahara itself. Covering 20 percent of the Sahara with solar farms raises local temperatures in the desert by 1.5°C according to our model. At 50 percent coverage, the temperature increase is 2.5°C.

Do Sahara solar farms dampen precipitation and wind anomalies?

By examining the large-scale remote responses induced by Sahara solar farms in S20 SST, we find that the precipitation and wind anomalies seen in S20 are significantly dampened when the ocean response to local changes and associated ocean–atmosphere interactions are limited (Figure 1f; Figure S3f).