wiredinUSA December 2011

INDEX

Morocco to host first solar farm in €400bn renewables network

Morocco has been chosen as the first location for a German-led, €400bn project to build a vast network of solar and wind farms across North Africa and the Middle East to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity supply by 2050. The Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii), a coalition of companies including E.ON, Siemens, Munich Re and Deutsche Bank, announced at its annual conference that “all systems are go in Morocco” with construction of the first phase of a 500MW solar farm scheduled to start next year. The precise location of the €2bn plant is yet to be finalized, but it is expected to be built near the desert city of Ouarzazate. It will use parabolic mirrors to generate heat for conventional steam turbines, as opposed to the photovoltaic cells used in the UK.

The 12km 2 Moroccan solar farm will, said Paul van Son, Dii’s chief executive, be a “reference project” to prove to investors and policy makers in both Europe and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region that the Desertec

vision can be a major source of renewable electricity in the decades ahead.

Discussions are already underway with the Tunisian government about building a solar farm, he said, and Algeria is the next “obvious” country, due to its close proximity to western Europe’s grid. Countries such as Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia are predicted to start joining the network from 2020, as a network of high voltage direct current cables are built and extended across the wider region.

EUROPE NEWS

wiredInUSA - December 2011

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