Morocco aims to boost its renewable capacity to 12 gigawatts by 2030 as the North African country continues to develop new projects to meet its growing power needs and beef up its clean energy capacity. The country will increase its renewable capacity in the next eight years from more than 5 gigawatts currently. The total investment in new renewable projects would be in billions of dollars. It has also attracted investment from UAE companies such as Masdar. The Abu Dhabi clean energy company, in partnership with the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water, has set up a Solar Home System Project to provide energy to nearly 20,000 homes in more than 1,000 rural towns across Morocco. Masdar is also part of an international consortium that won a tender to construct an 800-megawatt solar power plant in Morocco. Masdar, along with France’s EDF Renewables and Green of Africa, based in Casablanca, are constructing an 800MW Noor Midelt solar plant in Morocco.
The solar projects were awarded to AMEA Power as part of a large international tender launched by the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) and the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development to construct the first phase of the multi-site solar energy Noor PV II programme, which has a capacity of 330MW. Many resource-rich Middle Eastern countries are also investing in boosting their renewables capacity as they look to free up their crude for export and to cut emissions. The UAE, Opec’s third-largest oil producer, aims to become carbon neutral by 2050, with clean and renewable energy investments worth Dh600 billion ($163.5bn) planned over the next three decades. Abu Dhabi, which accounts for a bulk of the UAE’s oil production, is building the world’s largest solar plant at Al Dhafra with a capacity of 2 gigawatts, while Dubai is building the world’s largest solar energy park in an effort to reduce reliance on natural gas and diversify its power sources.