RECHARGE
Wind
Morocco is second only to Egypt in wind capacity on the African continentPhotograph: amerune/Flickr
Morocco invites bidders for 850MW of wind development
Morocco has invited companies to begin the tendering process for five wind farms totalling 850MW, representing the nation’s most significant step yet on its path to 2GW of capacity in 2020.
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Developers have until 2 March to submit expressions of interest. Those deemed qualified will then be invited to bid in an international tender to be launched in the second quarter of 2012.
The projects will be managed under a build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) system, in which the winners will take on nearly all responsibilities for getting the wind farms in the ground.
The developers will haul in all the revenues until they have recouped their investment and reached a pre-negotiated level of profit, at which time they will transfer the assets to the Moroccan government.
Morocco is second only to Egypt in wind capacity on the African continent, with 285MW in place after the second stage of the Tanger project was brought on line in November 2011 using Gamesa G52-850kW turbines.
The country has flagged up a number of locations for its next generation of wind farms – including Tétouan, Taza, Laâyoune and Boujdour.
In addition to its 2GW of wind ambitions, Morocco – which has no fossil-fuel resources of its own – is rolling out a 2GW concentrating solar power (CSP) programme by 2020, with the intention of exporting much of the clean electricity to Europe.
In November the World Bank approved a $297m loan for Morocco’s parabolic-trough Ouarzazate project, the first 130MW phase of which is due to be feeding the grid by 2014.
Morocco has one existing CSP project – the Ain Beni Mathar integrated-solar-combined-cycle plant, which has a 20MW solar-thermal component in addition to 450MW of gas-burning capacity.
Published: Tuesday, January 10 2012
