Brussels, 20/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to sink €345 million in the Ouarzazate solar complex in Morocco, the largest in the whole of North Africa. This contribution will cover over half of the total cost of the project, the EIB states in a press release. The Development Agency for France (AFD), the KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW) and MASEN, the promoter of the Ouarzazate solar complex, are also contributing to the funding of the project. This loan package was facilitated by a first grant contribution of €30 million (non-reimbursable) from the European Union in December 2011.
The Ouarzazate project aims to deploy 20 GW of additional renewable energy capacity by 2020. It is conceived to reach a potential capacity of 500 MW.
“The EIB is proud to contribute both its financing and its technical expertise acquired across Europe for all sources of renewable energy”, said Philippe de Fontaine Vive, the Bank's vice-president, who signed the financing agreement on 19 November, in the presence of the King. “The first phase of Ouarzazate is a milestone for the success of the Mediterranean Solar Plan in the region”, upheld by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) within which studies are being continued for this vast project. Launched in 2008 in the context of the UfM, the Mediterranean solar plan has two main objectives in sight for 2020 - that of developing an additional 20 GW renewable energy capacity, and that of achieving significant energy savings. The European Commission states on the subject of the solar energy plan that the immense solar renewable energy potential in the Mediterranean should prove crucial for meeting the surge in energy demand in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The solar energy project “provides a strong and green signal for the future in terms of technology, economic and energy development, and job opportunities”, says de Fontaine Vive.
The ambition to set up this project in the southern neighbourhood of Europe, in a region with a prodigious sunshine record, poses the question of how to transport the electricity produced not only to the countries of the northern rim of the Mediterranean but also throughout the European market, and especially to Germany, which has great demand and which invests already in such programmes (e.g. the Desertec project). This causes technical problems as well as regulatory problems. The current conditions, experts say, are at the origin of bottlenecks, in particular when crossing the Spanish and French borders, not to mention the incomplete chain of European interconnections in this part of Europe. Eneko Landaburu, EU Ambassador in Rabat, underlined how important it was to “support the progressive integration of our respective energy markets (Ed.: European, Moroccan and beyond the Mediterranean), as well as the joint development of renewable energy”. (FB/transl.jl)