“Europe is making great progress in renewable technology! The creation of a colossal solar farm in the sunny reaches of Morocco shows the huge investment in CleanTech around the world. This massive solar farm has the potential, when fully scaled up, to provide all of Europe’s energy needs. With the sun shining 340 days a year, Morocco has great promise in sustainably powering the future of the continent!”
– Marcus Deans, CleanTech Academy Graduate & WEtech Alliance Intern
Via BBC – July 14, 2017
The minibus crosses the vast plateau on a newly paved road. Cracked fields stretch away towards the Moroccan desert to the south. Yet the barren landscape is no longer quite as desolate as it once was. This year it became home to one of the world’s biggest solar power plants.
Hundreds of curved mirrors, each as big as a bus, are ranked in rows covering 1,400,000 sq m (15m sq ft) of desert, an area the size of 200 football fields. The massive complex sits on a sun-blasted site at the foot of the High Atlas mountains, 10km (6 miles) from Ouarzazate – a city nicknamed the door to the desert. With around 330 days of sunshine a year, it’s an ideal location.
As well as meeting domestic needs, Morocco hopes one day to export solar energy to Europe. This is a plant that could help define Africa’s – and the world’s – energy future.
