Harnessing the power of the desert sun is at the centre of the scheme to build European supergrid that would allow countries across the continent to share electricity from abundant green sources such as wind energy in the UK and Denmark and geothermal energy from Iceland and Italy.     

According to a report in 'The Guardian' today, the idea is gaining political support in Europe, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently backing the north African solar plan.     

Because the sunlight is more intense, solar photovoltaic panels in north Africa could generate up to three times the electricity compared with similar panels in northern Europe.     

Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European Commission's Institute for Energy explained how electricity produced in solar farms in Africa, each generating around 50 to 200 megawatts of power, could be supplied to European countries which are thousands of miles away.     

The proposed grid would use high-voltage direct current transmission lines which lose less energy over distance than conventional alternating current lines.