Rabat – Morocco will invest USD 40 billion in renewable energy sector projects by 2030, revealed Minister of Energy, Mining and Sustainable Development Aziz Rabbah on Wednesday.
$30 billion will be dedicated to renewable energy electricity generation, said the minister, an affirmation that the transition to renewables in Morocco is well underway.
Rabbah revealed that the share of electricity produced in Morocco from wind and solar resources had reached 13 percent in 2016. In 2009, that figure was just 2 percent.
As part of Morocco’s plan to achieve 52 percent renewable energy electricity generation by 2030, the country has established several vocational and technical training programs and centers in the field of renewable energies.
Rabbah was speaking in Casablanca at the first edition of the International Congress of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating (CIFAC).
“The creation of these training centers will strengthen the dialogue between industry professionals and public authorities,” said Rabbah.
This year’s solar energy expansion program will see the expansion of the Noor Laayoune I and Noor Boujdour I plants to bring them up to 2020 planned capacities.
The chairman of the Executive Board of the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy, Mustapha Bakkoury, announced in late January that the “large project of Midelt” is advancing on schedule and that the construction of that and other solar power plants will start no later than early 2019.
In terms of wind energy, Bakkoury said that 2018 will see the commissioning of plants that will produce capacities of about 300 megawatts, as well as the launch of new projects in Midelt and Taza “which are expected to reinforce the 42 percent target for 2020.”
