Paris – The French Development Agency (AFD) decided, during its board meeting held Thursday in Paris, to grant Morocco funding of 100.3 million euros to “support the implementation of its solar plan and the construction of a solar power plant in Ouarzazate”.
This financing, consisting of a loan of 100 million euros and a grant of 300,000 euros, was approved in favor of the Moroccan Solar Energy Agency, responsible for implementing the Solar Plan.
The French Development Agency underlined on this occasion the importance of the Moroccan solar plan launched in 2009 with the objective of developing an electricity production capacity based on solar energy of at least 2,000 MW by 2020.
If Morocco depends 97 pc on the outside for its energy supply, « which weighs heavily on its trade balance and its budget », it is endowed with « a solar resource which is
among the most abundant on the planet and its desert areas are particularly suitable for concentrated solar power plants, a future solution for producing renewable electricity,” notes the agency.
The green electricity produced, within the framework of the Moroccan solar plan, will be directed primarily towards the local market and, in part, exported to Europe.
The Ouarzazate Program will be developed in several phases, the first comprising a parabolic trough power plant, with a capacity of between 125 MW and 160 MW, with a thermal storage system of three.
Fuel savings for Morocco are estimated at $38.5 million per year and the first phase of a 150 MW power plant will avoid the emission of 270,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
