Sunny skies: Dar Wan farm now uses solar energy for irrigation, Morocco, October 2016
Philippe Petit · Paris Match · Getty
We were in the Tunisian Sahara, on the road to Rjim Maatoug. At the Algerian border, oil tankers connecting the region’s various deposits perpetually criss-crossed. Under military rule since the 1980s, this lunar landscape dotted with clumps of palm trees could soon trade its black gold for the promise of green energy. The Tunisian-British partnership TuNur hopes to build one of the world’s largest thermodynamic solar plants here, on collective lands once home to nomadic groups.
‘Wind and solar energy are infinite, and Tunisia has both in abundance,’ says the company, whose aim is to produce 4.5 GWh of electricity for export to Italy, France and Malta. The megaproject, deemed unrealistic by some observers, may get a boost…
