Recent and ongoing developments in solar power technology have enabled a transition to a solar-powered economy, which holds tremendous promise for mitigating climate change, boosting economic growth in substantial parts of the world and improving energy security. However, these transformative changes will become politically unsustainable unless the domestic and international (above all redistributive) political-economic consequences are better understood.

The project focuses on understanding the international and domestic distributional consequences of the transition to a solar-powered economy both domestically within Germany and in the Maghrib countries of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, as well as internationally between Europe and Northern Africa, where a „mediterrane Energiegemeinschaft“ is under consideration.  It does so by addressing a set of interrelated, but distinct questions: (1) What are the energy systems and other technical requirements of large-scale PV electricity generation in Northern Africa and of the export of electricity to central and northern Europe? (2) What are the international political and economic distributional consequences of creating a trans-Mediterranean energy grid? And (3) what are the domestic distributional consequences within Maghrib countries?

Through these questions, the project investigates the present barriers and challenges to renewable energy deployment in politically marginalized and economically underdeveloped areas, relating more broadly to the TransforM focus on the political consequences of transformative technologies and how governance can address these challenges.