Morocco Secures Funding for Two Concentrating Solar Power Projects

Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Morocco's solar power build program remains on-track after being bolstered by an $882 million loan from Germany's state-owned KFW Bank, which will partly finance two concentrating solar power (CSP) projects.

Tenders for the construction phase of the 200-megawatt (MW) and 100-MW plants are imminent, and Abengoa (NASDAQ:ABGB) (Seville, Spain), International Power (OTC:GDFZY) (GDF) (Paris, France) and ACWA Power (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) have been preselected for the Noor II and Noor III projects. Both projects will be sited near the city of Ouarzazate, in the south of the country.

A spokesman for KFW Bank said that $445 million will be loaned for Noor II and $437 million for Noor III. The total investment required by the projects is $1.35 billion for Noor II and $945 million for Noor III. Parabolic mirror technology will be used for the larger project, and a solar power tower will be used for the 100-MW plant.

The overall target for Morocco's solar power build is a total of 2,000 MW by 2020. The country's current total installed power capacity is about 5,260 MW.

The World Bank is expected to make a loan of $413 million, and it is predicted that there will be similar loans from the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. The total amount needed to meet project contracts will be completed by smaller loans from the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund, the French Development Agency and the EU.

For related information, see August 5, 2013, article - Morocco Launches Tenders for 300 Megawatts of Solar CSP Projects.

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