Rabat – In the first semester of 2019, Morocco’s electricity production increased by 25.1%, up by 19.1% compared to the same period last year.
The data is provided by the Direction of Studies and Financial Forecasts (DEPF), part of the Ministry of Interior.
According to DEPF, the good performance is mainly due to an increase of 49.1% in private electricity production at the end of the first quarter of 2019, after it registered a 3% increase a year earlier. It is also due to the production of electricity projects implemented under Law 13-09. which progressed by 64.3%.
The law, enacted on February 11, 2010, considers the development of national sources of renewable energies as a priority of the national energetic policy.
In the second quarter of 2019, electricity production registered a growth of 22.5%, having registered 27.9% in the first quarter of the same year.
Net Energy Gain (NEG) registered a growth of 5.3% in the first semester of 2019 after it was only 0.1% a year earlier while electricity imports fell by 92% in the first semester of 2019.
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The consumption of electricity slightly increased by 2.4% in the second quarter of 2019, driven particularly by the good performance of energy sales of medium voltage, up by11%, distributors up by 4.2%, and low voltage energy, up by 6.4%.
The DEPF points out that, sales of electric power, in the first semester of 2019, increased by 0.8%, after a decline of 1% a year earlier.
Morocco aims to generate 42% of its electricity from renewable energies by 2020. To achieve its high aspirations, Morocco has heavily invested in solar energy through the world’s 2nd largest solar plant, the Noor Ouarzazate project and Noor Midelt I which is yet to be constructed.
The Noor-Ouarzazate complex was built on an area of more than 3,000 hectares with an investment of $400 million loans from the World Bank and an additional $216 million from the Clean Technology Fund.
