Should we fill the Sahara desert with Solar Panels?

The Sahara desert, which has approximately 9,000,000 square kilometres of barren land currently does very little; and when I mean very little I mean nothing. The Sahara desert receives a lot of sunshine hours, and the sun it does receive is incredibly powerful. It seems like the perfect place; large amounts of empty land, and a huge amount of solar energy beaming down. 

At least that is what many people have thought over the years. Way back in 1913, an American engineer Frank Shuman conceived such plans. Then again in 1986 a German particle physicist going by the name of Gerhard Knies explored the same idea. Shuman strongly believed desert solar energy was necessary and that without it, humanity would revert to barbarism. Knies went on to say that the desert receives enough energy in a few hours to power the entire world for a year.

​A set of official plans have actually been devised and go under the name of 'Desertec'. The plans detail the idea of having a large network of solar and wind farms stretching across the Mena region with the intention to power Europe. For many years it was widely regarded as nothing more than an unattainable dream, but in the last couple of years the project has begun to gain momentum.

There are a couple of issues though that threaten the prospect of solar panels in the desert and that is sandstorms. Although rare, it can cause huge problems if the panels are titled away from the wind when it reaches certain speeds. In addition, the general dusty conditions in the Desert means that "we are witnessing about 2% degradation every day in performance." as quoted by the Guardian.

So what do you think? Should we take advantage of the vast open land to harness the energy from the sun, or should we keep to just installing it on top of rooftops and in farmers fields?