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The time has come when the sun might never set in Germany. The artificial sun developed by the German Aerospace Center is set to be the largest of its kind and hopes to address Germany's need for more environmentally-friendly fuels.

The experiment is named Synlight. The facility is set up in Jeulich, Germany and will be using a honeycomb-like arrangement of a hundred and forty-nine xenon lamps to mimic natural sunlight.

Synlight will focus all of the light produced from the lamps to an 8x8-inch surface which is equivalent to around 10,000 times the solar radiation that would shine on the same area on the average, the ABC News reported. The temperatures that will be produced by the artificial sunlight projection will range from 3000-3500 degrees Celsius.

The furnace-like temperatures are essential to test the methods of producing hydrogen, which is very rare on the earth's surface. The artificial sun experiment aims to solve this problem by simulating the best concentration of natural sunlight to initiate a reaction that produces hydrogen fuel. The hydrogen produced becomes a carbon monoxide-free fuel that can power motor vehicles, The Guardian reported.

The scientists hope to grow the experiment to a point that it can supply fuel for industrial needs. The Synlight project wants to eventually use natural sunlight to power the lamps. Currently, the energy needed for the experiment to work for four hours is roughly the same to what an average-sized family would use in a year.

Another drawback that the artificial sun faces is the volatility of hydrogen. Its lightness presents a problem because the amount of hydrogen that can be stored is significantly lesser than a conventional fuel source in the same space.

The German Aerospace Center hopes that through Synlight, they will be able to produce fuel that has no carbon emission in the foreseeable future.