Morocco aims to double renewables to 12 gigawatts by 2030

Morocco aims to increase its renewable capacity to 12 gigawatts by 2030.

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 the existing 5 gigawatts, according to a senior official.

Renewables will form 52 per cent of the total energy mix by the time, up from 40 per cent currently.

“There is a big investment today to develop [renewables projects] in different regions of the country,” Said Mouline, director general of the Moroccan Agency for Energy Efficiency, told The National on the sidelines of the World Utilities Congress in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

“We have one of the most competitive wind and solar resources [and] that’s why we reached a very low price with renewables, less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour for wind and between 2 and 3 cents for solar PV.”

The total investment in new renewable projects would be in “billions of dollars”, he said, without disclosing a specific figure.

Morocco, which imports more than 90 per cent of its energy needs, has been one of the early adopters of renewable energy in the Middle East and North Africa.

It has also attracted investments 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 electrify nearly 20,000 homes in more than 1,000 rural towns across Morocco.

Masdar is also part of a global consortium that won a tender to build an 800MW solar power plant in Morocco.

The country is seeking investments from across the world to develop new projects, Mr Mouline said.

“The last tender for a wind project, we had 19 groups (competing) from all over the world. At the end, we had three companies, we do infrastructure and they are doing investment.”

Dubai’s Amea Power recently won a contract to build two solar power plants in Morocco.

Many resource-rich Middle Eastern countries are trying to boost their renewables capacity as they look to cut emissions.

The UAE, Opec’s third-largest oil producer, aims to reach net zero by 2050, with clean and renewable energy investments worth Dh600 billion ($163.5bn) planned over the next three decades.