Morocco Building 500 MW Solar Power Project
Written by Megan Treacy on 25/05/12
Morocco is a country that is bursting with solar power potential — it gets 3,000 hours a year of sunshine — but it relies heavily on the import of fossil fuels. That may be turning around with plans for a 500 MW solar complex to include solar PV and concentrating solar installations and a larger goal to reach 2,000 MW of installed solar power capacity by 2020.
The complex will be built in Ouarzazate and should be completed by 2015. The first phase will be a parabolic trough facility. When completed, the project will prevent 240,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, the equivalent of taking 80,000 cars off the road. The large project has been funded by at least partially funded by a $297 million loan from the World Bank.
Morocco also has great wind power potentialalong its coastline with a technical potential of about 10,000 MW, though a lack of transmission infrastructure to get that power into the grid is holding development back. Morocco’s plans to install a mix of solar and wind power could reduce its fossil fuel imports by 2.5 million tons a year and carbon emissions by 9 million tons a year.
.
