SeeNews Renewables
by Mariyana Yaneva
Moroccan electricity and water utility company (ONEE) has extended till October 30 the deadline for submitting bids to its 850 MW wind power tender.
The extension was granted to the five pre-qualified bidders to allow them to “optimise offers”, ONEE said on its website last week.
The five bidders were pre-qualified in April this year on the basis of their submitted technical and industrial integration offers.
By the original deadline of September 18, the five consortia had to elaborate further on the development, design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of their proposals and submit commercial offers. All five have asked for extension, ONEE said.
The five shortlisted consortia are as follows in alphabetical order.
1) Acciona Energia and Acciona Wind Power of Spain;
2) French EDF Energies Nouvelles with Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC), Fipar Holding of Morocco, and Alstom Wind of Spain;
3) Saudi group International Company for Water and Power Project (ACWA Power) in cooperation with Gamesa Eolica Sl;
4) UK’s International Power PLC (Engie group) with International Power LTD (UAE) and Vestas France SAS;
5) and, Moroccan Nareva Holding with Enel Green Power and Siemens Wind Power AS.
The 850 MW tender includes five projects — the 150 MW Tanger 2 in the northern part of the country, 300 MW at Tiskrad, Laayoune, 200 MW at Jbel Lahdid, Essaouira, 100 MW near Boujdour, and 100 MW at Midelt, some 400 km east of Casablanca. Two of these projects are sited in an internationally disputed area in the eastern part of Sahara.
All projects will be developed under public private partnership and structured under the build, own, operate and transfer (boot) scheme.
Commissioning of the tender projects is expected between 2017 and 2020.
Facing a 4% to 6% year-on-year increase in electricity demand, Morocco is targeting to achieve a 42% share of renewable energy in overall energy producing capacity by 2020. The African country has undertaken an integrated programme to increase its wind and solar power capacities to 2 GW each by 2020.
Mariyana is a founding member of the SeeNews Renewables team. With eight years of professional experience in renewable energy she has built strong expertise in the wind industry and Eastern Europe markets.
