German Bosch to exit Desertec project at end-2012 - report

(SeeNews) – Nov 13, 2012 - German industrial group Bosch is about to exit the Desertec renewable energy project as of the end of 2012, Financial Times Deutschland reported today, citing a spokeswoman for Bosch's drive and control technologies unit Rexroth.

Bosch Rexroth's membership contract runs until the end of December 2012 and the company does not plan to extend it.

Bosch is already the second German company to abandon the EUR 400 billion (USD 508.4bn) project, after engineering group Siemens (ETR:SIE) announced its exit last month.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) brings together partners from 15 countries, whose objective is to develop solar power and wind resources in the North Africa and the Middle East (MENA) deserts in order to power a network extending to Europe and the Middle East.

The project aims to supply MENA entirely with renewable energy by 2050, while part of the generated renewable energy will be transported to Europe.

DII was set up in 2009 and its shareholders include German reinsurer Munich RE (ETR:MUV2), utilities E.on (ETR:EOAN) and RWE (ETR:RWE) as well as Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBK).

However, the Desertec project is currently progressing at a slower pace than initially expected.

Bosch’s contribution to the project was mainly through the means of expert workshops and technology exchange, the daily said.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.268)

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!