La energía une a España y Marruecos cada vez más
From 6 to 8 June, a meeting will be held in Casablanca between companies in the energy sector to promote collaboration between Morocco and Spain in renewable energies. According to the Spanish government, Morocco can offer business opportunities to Spanish companies in the energy sector through public tenders managed by the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN), the public body responsible for coordinating the entire renewable energy strategy. Collaborations could also be carried out with other private companies that respond to tenders and need equipment or materials.
Morocco has been committed to clean energy for years, as it is dependent on fossil fuels and has hardly any gas or oil, especially compared to its neighbours Algeria and Libya. Thus, Morocco, due to its geographical location and favourable climatic characteristics, has become a potential supplier of clean energy not only for the country itself, but also a powerful supplier for Europe.
With more than 300 days of sunshine a year over its extensive territory and sparsely populated desert lands, and a high-yield wind potential in the Atlantic, Morocco can take advantage of its privileged location to move towards energy independence, thereby increasing its energy security and, at the same time, producing surpluses for export to Europe at a very competitive cost.
According to the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies, MASEN wants to set up a total of 20 solar plants, along with several wind power plants, which will allow it to reach 2,000 MW per year, in addition to the country's existing hydroelectric dams, capable of generating an additional 1,300 MW. Likewise, the Alawi kingdom wants to boost national and foreign investment in this sector in order to achieve the objective of renewable energies reaching 52% of the country's total energy sources by 2030.
Spanish companies have great opportunities in solar and wind energy in the neighbouring country, as demonstrated by the contract awarded to TSK. The Spanish-based engineering and construction company is responsible for the design and construction of the first phase of Noor Midelt. The Noor Midelt plant is the fourth solar thermal power plant in Morocco and the third to use parabolic trough technology. It will provide clean electricity to more than one million people, at a price estimated at a quarter of what it costs in Morocco to obtain electricity from oil, according to the daily 360. The consortium formed by the French electricity company EDF, the Abu Dhabi company Masdar and the Moroccan company Green of Africa selected TSK in 2019 for the design of this innovative solar plant, with an investment of more than 700 million euros.
Since the High Level Meeting between the Moroccan and Spanish governments in February 2023, relations between the two Executives and their different business sectors have continued to grow closer. Morocco needs investors to be able to meet its 2030 clean energy targets and become less dependent on fossil fuels, just like Spain and Europe. Collaboration between the two countries is therefore necessary and will have to continue if solar or wind energy is to be imported from Morocco to Europe. This requires investment in an energy network that can bring energy from southern Morocco via the Iberian peninsula to Europe. The low cost of producing this energy in the Moroccan kingdom could be a solution to the dependence on hydrocarbons, which are increasingly expensive and make us dependent on energy that is not infinite and pollutes, contradicting the objectives set by Europe towards a greener and more sustainable future.
