But Amrane stresses that dedicated
tools are needed to improve credit
risk and investment mechanisms for
African countries. “They have to be
specific,” he said.
He highlighted several areas that
could help speed up the implementation
of renewables projects. These
include reducing the cost of lending,
improving insurance schemes with
insurance against political events
and natural disasters.
“We are working with some international
financial institutions on regional
tools to improve the investment
framework in order to accelerate financing
and capacity building for
these projects, and create some momentum,”
said Amrane. “We are also
working to create a base of developers
and industrial companies that can
solve the problems that can be related
to logistics, etc.”
Fostering favourable conditions for
the development of renewable projects
is crucial; for the economies of
African countries, it can be a gamechanger.
This has certainly been the
case in Morocco.
“These projects can be transformative
for our country,” said Amrane.
“Morocco will be one of the few
countries to have more renewables
capacity than fossil fuel capacity by
2030. At this level, we created the
conditions to attract investors, gave
more visibility to industrials and succeeded
in reaching very competitive
prices for renewable energy.”
Morocco’s renewables programme
has made an impressive start and
continues to make good progress.
The country is well on its way to
completing what will be the world’s
largest CSP project at Ouarzazate.
The first 160 MW phase of the
580 MW facility began operation in
2016 and the final two stages should
be fully operational by the end of the
year. When complete it will meet the
electricity needs of nearly 2.3 million
Moroccans.
Construction of more than 850 MW
of wind power projects throughout
the country is under way and new
capacity is under development. Amrane
also said that Masen is open to
other forms of renewable energy such
as wave and tidal and waste-to-energy,
as well as what he calls “power-to-x”,
i.e. the production of green fuels from
renewable energy.
He notes: “Morocco will not just
stick to power generation but will also
develop industrial activities related to
the renewable energy sector.”
Masen is committed to the spread of
renewable energy, not just in Africa
but also in the Mediterranean region
by improving renewable energy market
integration via its transmission
link with Spain and potential interconnection
with Portugal.
He concluded: “We are working to
see how these systems can be improved
in the future to contribute to
the reduction of CO2 emissions and
help achieve the Paris Climate Agreement
targets.”
Morocco shows
Africa the way
on renewables
Over 1 billion of the world’s
population still has no access
to electricity – the majority being
concentrated in Africa. But although
the continent is energy-poor,
it is rich in energy resources. Renewable
energy resources in particular
offer great potential in bringing affordable
electricity to the 674 million
without power, of which around 600
million are in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the International Energy
Agency (IEA), almost half the
growth in electricity generation in
Africa to 2040 could come from renewables.
In terms of centralised
power generation, this would be
largely through greater exploitation
of hydropower and geothermal resources.
Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic
(PV), wind and mini hydro have
significant potential for decentralised
generation.
While realising this potential will
have its challenges, countries in sub-
Saharan Africa only need to look to
some of their North African neighbours
to see what is possible, and
even draw on relevant expertise.
The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable
Energy (Masen), for example,
is one organisation that is well placed
to support sub-Saharan Africa along
the road to 100 per cent electricity
access.
Commenting on the region, Obaid
Amrane, Member of the Board at
Masen said: “It is sad that more than
600 million people in Africa do not
have access to electricity – more than
any other place worldwide. It is even
sadder that in some of these countries,
people that do have access, have to
pay more for electricity than households
in rich countries. This means
they cannot create virtuous economic
growth. Because energy is at the
centre of all economies, finding a
solution to electricity is a key to
overcoming poverty.
“But when considering the energy
resources that are available, such as
solar and hydro, in particular, renewables
offer many African countries an
opportunity to jump one stage of energy
development. They can take a
short cut straight to renewable energy
and all its benefits, without necessarily
having to invest in large grids, etc.
This could be both a solution and a
driver for the economy.”
Developing the decentralised renewable
energy sector could also
create hundreds of thousands of jobs
for young people in the installation,
maintenance of these micro-grid systems,
while improving basic essentials
such as education and healthcare, he
added.
Amrane believes the international
community has a responsibility to
work together to create the conditions
for a real take-off of both decentralised
and large-scale renewable
projects.
Morocco is itself a good example
of a country that is embracing renewables
to the benefit of its people and
its economy. Amrane noted that it
has a very successful rural electrification
programme, where it has
achieved almost 100 per cent electrification
using solar systems for remote
areas, and is now working on
more comprehensive micro-grid
projects to extend electricity beyond
just lighting.
When created in 2010, Masen was
known as the Moroccan Agency for
Solar Energy – a privately owned
Moroccan company with public funding
– set up to lead the Moroccan
Solar Plan, a programme to install a
minimum capacity of 2000 MW by
2020. In 2016, Masen became the
Moroccan Agency for Sustainable
Energy, with its remit extended to all
renewable energy sources (mainly
solar, wind and hydropower).
Electricity consumption in Morocco
is growing at around 5-6 per cent annually.
Until recently, it was dependent
on imports for almost all of its primary
energy needs. When oil prices
reached nearly $150 per barrel, the
country’s economic model was called
into question, as high and volatile oil
prices, combined with shortages in
natural gas, threatened growth.
The government therefore set out
to diversify its energy mix and saw
that its rich solar and wind resources
presented an economic opportunity.
It set a goal for renewables to represent
42 per cent of installed capacity
by 2020, with Masen’s contribution
being a minimum installed capacity
of 3000 MW. This target has since
been increased to 52 per cent by
2030 with Masen installing an additional
6000 MW.
The major portion of the early capacity
additions will be solar. It is an
obvious choice for the country. Morocco
has one of the highest rates of
solar insolation in the world – about
3000 hours per year of sunshine but
up to 3600 hours in the desert.
Masen’s plan to build 2000 MW of
solar – with projects consisting of
both solar PV and concentrated solar
power (CSP) – is among the most
ambitious in the world. Amrane
highlighted the importance of both
solar PV and CSP, noting that the
first is good for mid-scale and decentralised
rural projects to meet low
intensity applications such as television
and lighting, while the second,
when incorporating storage, is a
highly dispatchable large grid-scale
technology.
“The technologies are complementary
and can be complementary at a
single plant. This is what we are
trying to demonstrate at Midelt…
We are using both technologies at
one large-scale solar power plant to
dispatch a very smooth load curve,”
said Amrane.
The Noor Midelt solar complex is
an 800 MW plant, consisting of two
400 MW plants. Each plant will have
around 150 MW of CSP and the remainder
as PV. Contracts for the
project are expected to be awarded by
the end of this year, and should be in
operation by 2021.
“It will be a new ground breaking
trend in solar that demonstrates that
we can compete with base load fossil
fuel solutions,” said Amrane.
Replicating such projects elsewhere
on the continent will call for the right
legal and regulatory framework to
attract the required investment.
According to the IEA’s ‘Energy for
All Case’ cumulative investments
between 2017 and 2030 under current
policies and commitments are
less than one-fifth of the level needed
to achieve universal electricity access
in sub-Saharan Africa. It estimates
that the additional cumulative
investment required amounts to $370
billion between 2017 and 2030 in its
New Policies Scenario, which is its
central scenario.
In addition to the legal and regulatory
framework needed to attract
such significant sums, Amrane says
countries also need “a good investment
framework” to reduce capital
costs, and the ability to structure and
develop “innovative financial and
contractual schemes”.
Masen says it has signed Memorandums
of Understanding with
more than 12 African countries to
share its experience in the development
of renewable energy programmes
and to develop some specific
projects in solar, wind and
hydro.
Amrane said: “For this, we will
need dedicated investment tools because
renewable energy is highly
dependent on financing. The investments
are highly capitalistic. Optimisation
of the investment of the project
in terms of its size and the financial
scheme to reduce capital cost to the
investor will make the project more
affordable to the consumer.”
Certainly, financing of renewable
projects is becoming easier as lenders
around the world turn away from investing
in fossil fuelled project and
companies that have fossil fuel assets.
THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - JULY 2018
14 Energy Outlook
Sub-Saharan
African countries
can learn much
from Morocco about
the opportunities
presented by
developing
renewable energy.
Junior Isles
Amrane: Masen has signed MoUs with more than 12 African
countries