Morocco aims for renewable energy sources to represent 52% of power stations’ capacity by 2030 (French)
ACWA Power International, a subsidiary of ACWA Power Saudi Renewable Energy Company, announced today, Sunday, a tank failure at one of the solar power plants it operates in Morocco, which will cause the company to lose revenues of about $47 million.
The company said on the website of the Saudi Stock Exchange that preliminary analysis indicates that the station (Noor 3), with a capacity of 150 megawatts, located in the Ouarzazate solar energy complex, will stop operating until November 2024.
He added that it received notification on March 21, 2024, of a leak in the molten salts tank.
The outage highlights the frequency of technical problems and failures associated with storage at the concentrated solar power plant.
Two sources told Reuters last month that technical problems had completely halted production there for a year, starting in the summer of 2021.
ACWA Power said that it will repair the tank and is also considering building a new one, and the company’s share in the project is 75%.
In a report issued in 2020, the Moroccan Economic, Social and Environmental Council recommended abandoning concentrated solar energy completely, due to its high cost compared to solar and wind energy.
The Council's report stated that the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy suffers a deficit of $80 million annually in the Nour Ouarzazate complex, because it sells energy at less than its production cost.
Morocco aims for renewable energy sources to represent 52% of power plant capacity by 2030 from 37.6% currently, most of which is through investments in solar and wind power plants.
Morocco produces only 831 megawatts of solar energy so far, compared to the 2,000 megawatts it was planning to produce by 2020.
Wind energy has made up for some of the shortfall, but polluting coal-fired plants still source most of the production.
Source: Reuters + websites