The country of Morocco plans on using the vast desert land near the city of Ouarzazate to create what will eventually become the world's largest solar power plant.
The new plant, which will combine solar, hydro and wind power, is all part of a plan by the country to provide over 50 percent of its power to its citizens via renewable energy by the year 2020. Currently, Morocco spends a lot of time and money importing fossil fuels into its country, but after considering that much of its land is desert, the country decided that solar power offers a better opportunity as an energy option for the future.
"We are not an oil producer," said Morocco's environment minister Hakima el-Haite to The Guardian. "We import 94 percent of our energy as fossil fuels from abroad and that has big consequences for our state budget," el-Haite told the Guardian. "We also used to subsidise fossil fuels which have a heavy cost, so when we heard about the potential of solar energy, we thought; why not?"
The construction of the power plant has four phases. During the first phase, the country will install over 500,000 mirrors that attach to a pipeline. The pipeline combines the sun's heat with water, creating steam, which in turn, powers turbines that will create energy. Eventually, the power plant will deliver over 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power around 1 million homes.
The plant also includes a tank loaded with molten sands to store energy: this will continue to provide power to Moroccan citizens once the sun goes down every evening.
Although Morocco's plan is just now close to completing its first phase, the country has bolder plans for the future: it hopes to eventually build transportation lines for exporting solar power across its country, as well as to bordering countries.
"We are already involved in high-tension transportation lines to cover the full south of Morocco and Mauritania as a first step," says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of Société d'Investissements Energétiques. "The [ultimate] objective given by his majesty the king is Mecca."
However, Morocco has thought even bigger, and believes it possible to eventually transport energy to Europe, although that would require a means to transport that power from their country to European countries.
For now, though, Morocco plans on keeping its focus at home, hoping that it can eventually become less dependent on fossil fuels by providing a source of energy from within its own borders to its citizens.
Photo: Alex Lang | Flickr
