PV Tech
The Ivanpah project in the US could be superseded as the world’s largest CSP plant by ambitious plans in Morocco. Source: BrightSource.
By John Parnell
Senior Moroccan officials will tour the US this June as they look to kick start the North African country’s ambitious US$12.4 billion solar plans.
A delegation that will include the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) and the Moroccan National Agency for the Development of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ADEREE) will hold meetings during an 11-day visit.
US businesses have been invited by the US Trade and Development Agency to meet with the officials in San Francisco and Denver.
Morocco has a target to install 6GW of renewable energy by 2020 with a US$12.4 billion set aside for utility-scale solar, both PV and concentrating solar power (CSP).
Major PV manufacturers and developers such as SunEdison and First Solar have already worked on large projects overseas.
In February BrightSource began to put its 392MW Ivanpah CSP plant into operation. It is the largest such plant in the world.
The tender process for 300MW of CSP in Morocco has already opened.
The Moroccan government has denied that solar investors have been spooked by a conflict in the Western Sahara region, which is earmarked for 1.1GW of solar projects.
