Morocco, Green Hydrogen, and the Fine Line Between Ambition and Energy Strategy

The event was attended by multinationals and companies, both private and public, local and Spanish, leading players in renewable energy and industrial processes already operating in Morocco. I listened to data, plans, investments, deadlines... and returned to Tangier with two clear feelings: admiration for the ambition and the intuition that we are still walking on ground that is being defined as we tread on it.

When you look at the energy map of North Africa, there is one point that shines stubbornly between the Atlantic, the Strait, and the desert: Morocco. A country that still generates much of its electricity by burning coal, but which has set out to sell green hydrogen, ammonia, and synthetic fuels to the world as if the future belonged to it by right. And, in a way, perhaps it does.

Admiration comes only when you review the facts. Caution appears as soon as you start crunching the numbers.

The bet: from the “Moroccan Offer” to desert megaparks

In 2019, Rabat created a National Hydrogen Commission and in 2021 published a Green Hydrogen Roadmap that elevates this energy vector to a “strategic growth sector,” with an estimated investment of around $10 billion over the next few decades.

Official projections indicate a demand for hydrogen and derivatives in Morocco of between 13.9 and 30.1 TWh in 2030, and up to 307 TWh in 2050.

In other words, a leap in scale that would make the country a major exporter of ammonia, methanol, and e-fuels. Studies linked to this roadmap assume that around 70% of Morocco's total hydrogen demand from 2030 onwards would be linked to exports, and that approximately 75% of these exports would be in the form of ammonia.

This is the basis for the “Moroccan Offer,” presented in March 2024: a package of land, governance, a one-stop shop, and incentives to attract integrated projects, from wind or solar farms to electrolyzers and ammonia plants, explicitly designed to supply Europe and other industrial markets.

The message to investors is clear: there is wind, sun, ports, industrial expertise, and an administration willing to move paperwork along fairly quickly. The response was not long in coming. In March 2025, the government announced the approval of hydrogen projects worth around 319 billion dirhams (around $32.5 billion), linked to the production of ammonia, green steel, and industrial fuels, with European, American, Gulf, and Chinese players among those selected.

At the same time, cooperation with Germany, Spain, and other European partners is not just a political headline: programs such as the Energy Partnership and GIZ's support for the development of Power-to-X projects, feasibility studies, and matching between Moroccan developers and European offtakers place hydrogen at the center of the bilateral agenda.

All this is not smoke and mirrors. It is a serious commitment, with names, projects, and money on the table. And yet, it is worth taking a deep breath before getting carried away.

The physical basis: an electricity system still in transition

The hydrogen story is based on an indisputable fact: Morocco has outstanding wind and solar resources and has been rolling out landmark projects for more than a decade, from Noor Ouarzazate in solar thermal to the large wind farms in the north and south of the country.

The electricity roadmap sets a target of 52% of installed generation capacity coming from renewables by 2030, and the most recent figures already put the renewable share at around 45% of installed capacity, with some 5.3 GW in operation in the southern provinces alone. New solar plants, such as those in Khouribga, reinforce this path.

But the reality is less photogenic than the brochures. In 2024, 59.3% of the electricity generated in Morocco still depended on coal, although this figure has fallen from 70% in 2022. The country has committed to completely phasing out coal by around 2040, conditional, of course, on access to international climate finance.

In other words, while a future of green molecules for export is being designed, the present continues to be largely fueled by thermal power plants that purchase coal on the international market. The transition is underway, but it has not yet reached the point where hydrogen can be considered a natural extension of an already decarbonized system.

Costs, technology, and the arithmetic of hydrogen

In international analyses, green hydrogen remains the most expensive option today: typical costs of $3.5 to $6 per kilogram, compared to $1.5–$2.5 for gray hydrogen from natural gas.

Morocco has the advantage of low potential renewable energy costs, and studies linked to players such as Masdar estimate that it could produce hydrogen for less than $2/kg in 2030 and close to $1/kg by 2050, if assumptions about falling costs and industrial scale are met.

On paper, the equation adds up. In practice, there are still several links to be refined:

• Electrolysis: Alkaline and PEM technologies are mature for hundreds of MW projects, but there are still uncertainties about cost and durability at large scale, especially in desert environments with dust, salinity, and the need for desalinated water.
• Storage and transport: the ammonia route is currently the most logical for long distances, but it involves energy losses, high CAPEX in synthesis plants and terminals, and strict safety requirements in ports. The conversion of existing gas pipelines, such as the Maghreb-Europe pipeline, is being studied as an option for mixing or transporting hydrogen, but it requires investment and a clear strategy between countries.
• Market and offtakers: Europe is talking about importing millions of tons of hydrogen and derivatives from North Africa, but regulations on certification, traceability, and state aid are still under development. Overly optimistic demand forecasts could leave assets stranded on the production side.
• There is another point, less glamorous but decisive: competition with direct uses of renewable electricity. Every MWh diverted to an electrolyzer to produce hydrogen for export is an MWh that will not displace coal or fuel oil in the local grid, nor will it lower the bill of a Moroccan industrial cluster trying to gain competitiveness.

Industry, fertilizers, and the risk of mixing debates

It would be unfair to reduce Moroccan hydrogen to an export fantasy. The country imports around 2 million tons of ammonia per year for its powerful fertilizer industry, at a cost of more than $400 million in 2018. Producing that ammonia with green hydrogen would require an additional 6 GW of renewable capacity, but it would allow the OCP group to gain self-sufficiency, stabilize its costs, and move toward carbon neutrality.

Here, hydrogen is not an end in itself, but a lever for a serious industrial policy: integrating more value into the phosphate chain, securing fertilizer supplies in an increasingly volatile world, and positioning Morocco as a “low-carbon” supplier of a critical commodity for global agriculture.

The problem arises when three different conversations are mixed together as if they were one and the same:

1. Domestic energy policy: how to decarbonize electricity generation, reduce dependence on coal and gas, and protect consumers and the local productive fabric.
2. Moroccan industrial strategy: where to create skilled jobs, supply chains, R&D, and in-house technological capabilities (electrolysis, engineering, component manufacturing, operation, and maintenance).
3. The hydrogen export business: capturing a share of the European hydrogen, ammonia, and e-fuel market, with long-term contracts and international financing.

Today, many public documents and official speeches tend to overlap these three areas, as if everything were moving in the same direction by pure inertia. Critical analyses of the hydrogen roadmap, carried out from the perspective of the “energy trilemma” (security of supply, sustainability, and cost), remind us that this is not always the case: the race to become an exporter can put pressure on the electricity system and delay the phase-out of coal if priorities are not properly ordered.

Separating export ambitions from green energy policy

It may be useful, at least for the sake of clarity, to conceptually separate two strategic lines that often overlap:

Hydrogen as an export business

• Integrated projects in areas with high renewable resources, designed from the outset to produce exportable molecules.
• Financing structures where the demand risk is largely assumed by international offtakers.
• Incentives aligned with local job creation, technology transfer, and the use of Moroccan suppliers, not just with speed of execution.

Internal energy transition

• Prioritization of the direct use of renewable electricity to replace coal and fuel oil in the national grid, even if the financial return is less attractive than that of an export purchase agreement.
• Reinforcement of grids, storage, and flexibility to integrate high percentages of wind and solar power, preventing the system from becoming dependent on backup fossil fuel power plants.
• Integration of hydrogen only where it brings clear value to the domestic system: fertilizers, certain industrial processes, seasonal storage, heavy transport.

In other words: let export ambitions not hijack the country's green energy policy. Let the glitz of ammonia in the ports not make us forget the smoke still coming out of the chimneys of coal-fired power plants.

Admiration with reservations, but without cynicism

Seen from Europe, it is easy to fall into paternalism or comfortable skepticism. This is not advisable. Over the last two decades, Morocco has demonstrated something that many richer countries have failed to achieve: continuity in its renewable energy policy, the capacity to execute complex projects, and the ability to attract global players in wind, solar, and now hydrogen.

Admiration, therefore, is justified. This does not mean that we should swallow the narrative without asking uncomfortable questions about costs, risks of overcapacity, resource governance, and the distribution of benefits between exports and domestic consumption.

The task of those working in the sector is precisely that: to separate the narrative from the arithmetic, ambition from public policy design, and headlines from the load curve.

If Morocco manages to put each piece in its place, exporting where it is profitable, industry where it generates value, renewables to decarbonize its own grid, then part of this country's wind and sun will cross the Mediterranean not as rhetoric, but as a tradable molecule.

No one will be able to claim that it was just climate marketing: it will be a well-planned business that supports a real energy transition in a country that has decided not to be a spectator, but an actor. And when that happens, Morocco will not be selling hydrogen: it will be selling strategy.

Juan Antonio Vidal. Plant Manager, InCom Composites Morocco SARL