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China-Africa Trade Information Service
info.afrindex.com
China-Africa Trade Information Service
Photo from Xin Hua
Although Morocco, has sufficient light and heat, it is a country with a lack of energy. It costs more than $6 billion a year to import electricity from neighboring Spain. While this situation is undergoing a major change.
Looking north from the downtown, a tower measuring 248 meters high shines in the sun. It is the tallest solar tower in the world, which is built by a Chinese construction company as part of Morocco's Noor III Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project.
In order to reduce dependence on energy imports, the Moroccan government has been actively developing renewable energy, and plans to raise the proportion of renewable energy to the total energy consumption to 42 percent by 2020.
Under the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China in 2013, Chinese builders came to Morocco to provide a solid fulcrum for the energy restructuring of this North African country.
Since 2015, Chinese Company has undertaken the construction of NOOR II and NOOR III CSP projects in Ouarzazate.
After completion of all four phases of projects, the NOOR station will provide clean energy for more than 1 million Moroccan households, and even export surplus electricity to Europe.
According to the staff of the NOOR projects, the 200-MW Noor II has the world's largest installed capacity as a parabolic trough power plant, while the 160-MW installed capacity of the NOOR III is the largest among the world's tower power plants.
Zhao Guangjian, project director of the NOOR II,said the two NOOR projects created 5,500 jobs for Moroccans during the peak period.
