The Mediterranean Basin is expected to be disproportionally affected by climate change and its impacts. This will lead to enhanced water scarcity, which requires a growing contribution of seawater desalination in order to provide sufficient amounts of potable water on the one hand and to increased demand for energy to cope with heat related health problems and the need to provide adequate air-conditioning of private and public buildings on the other. The current strategy of using conventional/hydrocarbon-based energy sources to satisfy the growing energy demands caused by the above mentioned problems leads to undesirably rises of CO2 emission, often violating EU - emission thresholds. However, the Mediterranean Basin and North Africa represent regions are characterized by exceptionally high direct solar irradiances. This offers unique potentials for the use of solar energy to satisfy a significant portion of the growing energy demand.

The contributions in this session will address technologies aimed at exploiting renewable energy potentials in the Mediterranean Basin and will explore possible synergies with regard to, e.g., the co-generation of electricity and desalinated seawater through the use of solar power.