When they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will occupy a space as big as Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, and generate 580MW of electricity, enough to power a million homes. Noor 1 itself has a generating capacity of 160MW.
Morocco’s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same impact on the region this century that oil production had in the last. But the $9bn (£6bn) project to make her country’s deserts boom was triggered by more immediate concerns, she said.
“We are not an oil producer. We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from abroad and that has big consequences for our state budget,” el-Haite told the Guardian. “We also used to subsidise fossil fuels which have a heavy cost, so when we heard about the potential of solar energy, we thought; why not?”
Solar energy will make up a third of Morocco’s renewable energy supply by 2020, with wind and hydro taking the same share each.
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro." - Mr Coffee
Good on them. The article states that 100% of their power will be renewable by 2020 (1/3 solar, 1/3 wind, 1/3 hydro). I wonder if there would be any money to be made if they overbuilt their power generation capacity and sold it abroad?
Assuming they forecast demand accurately they'll over build a bit by the nature of the grid. You need to be able to have bits down for maintenance and still provude power on a poor to average day. Means on an average day theyll have surplas.
"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Welcome to SDN, where we can't see the forest because walking into trees repeatedly feels good, bro." - Mr Coffee
Morocco is only in position to profit much by exporting power if the long distance transmission lines exist for them to move it. I suspect those lines don't already exist on the needed scale, but I could be wrong. And they could certainly be built up if and when the Moroccans have enough solar power capacity to make it worthwhile.
The transmission lines don't exist, but they're not unfeasible. There's already an HVDC line between Spain and Majorca, which is a much longer distance than many points between Spain and Morocco.
The problem is one of finding a market willing to justify the price. Algeria is just as suited for solar power as Morocco and on top of that they're sitting on one of the world's largest natural gas reserves. Western Sahara is a possible market, but its population is so small that it's hardly worth counting as a market - and again, there's no reason not to just build a solar plant there and save money on transmission lines. Spain isn't quite as good for solar and doesn't have fossil fuel reserves. And that's it for urban areas within a thousand miles of Morocco, making Spain the only viable market.
The question then becomes, can Morocco sell Spain energy at a low enough price, despite infrastructure costs, to make it more attractive than just building another solar, wind, or nuclear plant in Spain, or continuing to import fossil fuels from northern Africa.
Marrocco currently consumes 209,000 bbl/day. Assuming a long-term oil price of ~50$, and that they use half of that for energy production, they will save 5 million $ per day. Even if they need to sell the energy off at a small net loss, they will probably make a good deal for themselves. Or they'll just set up stuff that they can pump excess energy into - aluminium/iron/silicon/whatever furnaces. Or water desalination plants for example. Storing energy in potable water is as good as gold on most of the african continent.
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay
