Last month, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI switched on the first phase of a concentrated solar power plant, located on the edge of the Saharan desert, that is on track to become the world’s largest when it is completed in 2018. The solar plant will provide electricity for 1.1 million people.
According to The Guardian, “The north African country plans to generate 42% of its energy from renewables by 2020, with one-third of that total coming from solar, wind and hydropower apiece. Morocco hopes to use the next UN climate change conference, which it hosts in November, as the springboard for an even more ambitious plan to source 52% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.”
“It is a very, very significant project in Africa,” says Mafalda Duarte,manager of Climate Investment Funds which provided a portion of the funding. “Morocco is showing real leadership and bringing the cost of the technology down in the process.”
