Morocco MASEN starts 500MW Ouarzazate CSP solar - but nothing vs poverty ?
Post date: May 22, 2012 9:00:04 AM
PRO
AfDB helps fund $1.44bn Moroccan solar project
CSP ith central tower 160MW
MASEN Ouarzazate
The African Development bank has approved a loan if $336m to the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) to help finance the Ouarzazate solar power station projects which will have a solar generation capacity of 500MW with all phases complete.
The power station will utilize concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, arraying parabolic trough mirrors around a central tower filled with fluid material, to generate 160MW in the first phase. The project will become one of the largest solar power projects in the world at full expansion.
2G solar POWER Morocco by 2020
Quarzazate is the first stage in Morocco’s $9bn national Solar Power Plan, launched under the aegis of Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) in 2009, with the ambition to deploy 2000MW of solar power generation capacity by 2020
source: constructionweekonline.com
CONTRA
Claiming the the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund is supposed to be used to alleviate poverty, a British group is objecting to the use of World Bank funds in Morocco to deploy a Desertec solar project in Morocco that will export power to Europe.
After accepting bids from 200 companies, Spain’s Abesinsa ICI Abengoa’s industrial engineering and construction unit, Italy’s Enel SpA and Saudi-owned ACWA Power International are in the lead to develop the project. While Abengoa has developed projects like this before, Enel has only 230 MW in solar development.
Major industrial giants like Siemens, Mitsubishi, Daewoo, Lockheed Martin and Sener were shut out.
The World Development Movement claims that using Clean Technology Fund money for the solar project would be a misuse of funds, as it claims that the program is intended partly to reduce poverty, and ”to prioritise projects that tackle poverty and aid transition to a low carbon economy, instead of subsidising multinational companies.”
As solar projects go mainstream, they are increasingly developed by very large engineering firms. Saudi Arabia has a $109 billion solar plan to power one third of its country, for example. This will not be developed by small companies.
But another key reason that the World Bank selected Morocco for funding was the existence of a local manufacturing base with already existing industries, with the ability to supply the project from the most basic raw materials through to the final metal structures, electric and electronic equipment.
source: greenprophet.com
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