The sun soaked nation of Algeria has a good idea and they are running with it. They plan on building massive solar thermal power plants, using all the energy they need and exporting the rest to Europe. Even though they are Africa’s second largest nation they are more than 4/5ths desert, with an estimated solar resource able to power all of Europe 60 times over.

This idea has been a long time coming. Finally construction has started on Algeria’s first solar power plant at Hassi R’mel, 260 miles south of the capital Algiers. This hybrid plant will use both solar energy and natural gas to generate 150 megawatts. Of that, 25 megawatts will be from solar. This plant is the first of its kind worldwide, and will be online by 2010.

Algeria has ambitious plans of producing 6000 MW of solar power for export to Europe. “Our potential in thermal solar power is four times the world’s energy consumption so you can have all the ambitions you want with that,” said Tewfik Hasni, managing director of New Energy Algeria, or NEAL, a government run company created in 2002 to promote renewable energy.

Algeria’s plans involve running undersea cables to Spain and Italy some time around 2010-2012 and with Europe’s lofty goal of getting 20% of its energy from renewable sources this prospect may only become more financially feasible as old European economies groan under the struggle of shifting gears to renewable energy. Algeria’s plans to go solar make it unique among OPEC nations.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been a strong supporter of Algeria’s efforts and said that it would “bind France and Algeria” in a “Mediterranean Union”, witch has lead some to believe that France will finance the undersea cables to get that solar energy to Europe.

The Hassi R’Mel plant is the first of four solar plants planned. It plans on using natural gas to power the plant when it is cloudy or at night when there is no sun. Currently 125 out of 150 MW is produced by natural gas, so Algeria has not gone too far astray from its fossil fuel past (the exports of which produce $54 billion for the country last year). In the future as natural gas becomes more and more expensive it is likely that they will rely more and more on solar.

Algeria faces some serious financial and technological hurdles to overcome and they themselves say it will be at least ten years before they start making any profits.