Morocco is building the world's largest station with a concentration of solar energy, plans to begin exporting electricity to Europe

In a few hours, all the deserts of the planet absorb as much solar energy as mankind consumes in a whole year. Experts have long proposed to turn the Sahara into a European "electric generator". Finally, the process has begun.



Near the town of Ouarzazat in the African country of Morocco, the construction of the world's largest power plant with a concentration of solar energy (concentrating solar power, CSP) is underway.

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Morocco is the first African country that decided to correctly use its geographic location for the export of electricity to Europe. Most of the territory is in the desert, and to European Spain is only a few dozen kilometers across the Strait of Gibraltar. How not to use it?



The Noor project envisages the construction of a complex of four mega-power stations interconnected. According to the government’s plan, together with other renewable energy sources, these stations will provide about half of Morocco’s electricity needs, and it’s more profitable to export part of it to Europe. For Morocco, this is a significant achievement, because the country does not have its own oil and gas, so now 94% of the energy comes in the form of imported hydrocarbons. Soon this will come to an end, and the small Ouarzazate will become one of the main centers of global solar energy.







The construction of the power plant began on May 10, 2013 , and the official launch of the first phase of the project (Noor 1) is scheduled for November 2015, that is, very soon.



CSP technology with mirrors is considered exotic compared to using conventional photocells, but it has its advantages. For example, the concentrated energy per day continues to flow into the network even after sunset. Unlike photovoltaic cells, mirrors are practically free from dust. During the experiment for 360 days, the relative loss of power was only 0.4% without the use of a homemade surface cleaning system, as in the giant solar power plant in Saudi Arabia .



At the first stage of construction in Morocco, 500,000 parabolic mirrors with a height of 12 meters each were installed. 800 rows of mirrors quietly buzz every few minutes, slowly turning after the sun.







Mirrors reflect sunlight, focusing on a heat transfer station (HTF). There, the synthetic thermal oil heats up to 393 ° C and moves through the chute. Upon contact with water, steam is released, which rotates the turbine of the generator. Excess heat is transferred to the tank with molten salt, which stores heat for three hours - during this time the turbines continue to work even in the evening after sunset.



In its final form, the power plant area will be 2500 hectares - more than the area of ​​the Moroccan capital, the city of Rabat. The total capacity of all installations is 500 MW. The power of the first fragment, which is launched in a month, is 160 MW.



The power plants of the second and third phases of Noor 2 and 3 are scheduled to be launched in 2017. Engineers promise that there the coolant will be able to store energy not three, but eight hours. This means almost round-the-clock power generation for the region.



The energy companies of Morocco have serious ambitions. They believe that in the future the country may turn into an energy superpower that will supply electricity not only to neighboring countries, but even the Middle East and Europe. Of course, for this you need to build not only power plants, but also power lines to neighboring Spain. Already from Spain electricity will go all over the continent.



However, this is quite a distant future. The project will require gigantic investments, because even the current record-size Noor power plant complex invested about $ 9 billion. Most of this amount was borrowed from international financial institutions under the guarantee of the Moroccan government, the rest was allocated by King Mohammed VI of personal savings.



Now about a thousand workers are working 12-hour shifts, fixing the last wires and insulation, preparing a huge installation to start in a month. Well, it remains to look forward to this event: let's see whether it will work.

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Technical characteristics of the project Noor 1



A map of all power plants in the world with a concentration of solar energy (even Papuans in Papua New Guinea are building a small micro station for themselves, and Spain is the world leader in the number of such stations)