Ouarzazate Solar Power Station
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Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
for
light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...
) is a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system located in the
Drâa-Tafilalet Drâa-Tafilalet () is one of the twelve regions of Morocco. It covers an area of 88,836 km2 and had a population of 1,635,008 as of the 2014 Moroccan census. The capital of the region is Errachidia. Geography Drâa-Tafilalet is situated i ...
region in
Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
, from
Ouarzazate Ouarzazate (; , ), nicknamed ''the door of the desert'', is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in the region of Drâa-Tafilalet, south-central Morocco. Ouarzazate is a primary tourist destination in Morocco during the holidays, as well as ...
town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest
concentrated solar power Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated whe ...
(CSP) plant. With an additional 72 MW
photovoltaic system A photovoltaic system, also called a PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to abso ...
the entire project was planned to produce 582 MW. The total project's estimated cost is around $9 billion. The auxiliary diesel fuel system is used to maintain the minimal temperatures of the heat transfer fluid during times when the sun does not shine (including at night), to start the startup and synchronize the turbine to the electrical grid, and other auxiliary functions. The plant was completed in four phases and covers an area of over . It can store solar energy in the form of heated
molten salt Molten salt is salt which is solid at standard temperature and pressure but liquified due to elevated temperature. A salt that is liquid even at standard temperature and pressure is usually called a room-temperature ionic liquid, and molten salts ...
, allowing for production of electricity into the night.


Development

The project was developed by ACWA Power with the help of the Spanish consortium TSK-
Acciona Acciona, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational conglomerate dedicated to the development and management of infrastructure (construction, water, industrial and services) and renewable energy. The company, via subsidiary Acciona Energía, produces 21 ...
- Sener and is the first in a series of planned developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex by the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy ( MASEN). The project received preferential financing from several sources including the
Clean Technology Fund The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) were established in 2008 as a multilateral climate fund in order to finance pilot projects in developing countries at the request of the G8 and G20. The CIF administers a collection of programs with a view of ...
,
African Development Bank The African Development Bank Group (AfDB, also known as BAD in French) is a multilateral development finance institution, headquartered in Abidjan, Ivory Coast since September 2014. The AfDB is a financial provider to African governments and ...
, the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
, and the
European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...
; the EIB has loaned over 300 million euros to the project.


Location

The facility lies in Southern Morocco, near the ancient fortified town Ait-Ben-Haddou, near
Ouarzazate Ouarzazate (; , ), nicknamed ''the door of the desert'', is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in the region of Drâa-Tafilalet, south-central Morocco. Ouarzazate is a primary tourist destination in Morocco during the holidays, as well as ...
.


Noor I

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS) – Phase 1, also referred to as Noor I CSP, has an installed capacity of 160 MW. It was connected to the Moroccan power grid on 5 February 2016. It covers and is expected to deliver 370 GWh per year. The plant is a
parabolic trough A parabolic trough collector (PTC) is a type of solar thermal collector that is straight in one dimension and curved as a parabola in the other two, lined with a polished metal mirror. The sunlight which enters the mirror parallel to its plane of ...
type with a molten salt storage for 3 hours of low-light producing capacity. The cost of the project when it began operations was $3.9 billion. It uses half a million mirrors. The design uses wet cooling and the need to regularly clean the reflectors means that the water use is high – 1.7 million m3 per year or 4.6 liters per kWh. Water usage is more than double the water usage of a wet cooled coal power station and 23 times the water use per kWh of a dry cooled coal power station, though life-cycle
greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...
of solar thermal plants show that generating comparable energy from coal typically releases around 20 times more carbon dioxide than renewable sources. The electricity was to be sold at $0.19 /kWh.


Noor II

Noor II CSP is the second phase of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station. It is a 200 MW CSP solar plant using parabolic troughs. It has a seven hour storage capacity. It covers an area of and is expected to supply 600 GWh per year. Construction started in February 2016 and the plant was commissioned in January 2018. It uses a dry cooling system to decrease water use. The project will supply one million people with
electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
; it is estimated to save 750,000 tons in emissions.


Noor III

Noor III CSP is the third part of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station. Noor 3 is a different design, the mirrors are mounted horizontally on platforms which are supported by ten metre columns. Each platform is roughly the size of a tennis court. The panels follow the light, reflecting it to a 250 metre tall solar tower. It is a 150 MW gross CSP solar project using a
solar power tower A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's ra ...
with 7 hours energy storage. It covers an area of and it is expected to supply 500 GW·h per year. It uses a dry cooling system to decrease water use. The CSP tower mirror field was commissioned in March 2018. Noor III is the fifth ever built utility-scale CSP tower, but the second with energy storage, after the 125 MW gross Crescent Dunes. At 150 MW Noor III is now the most powerful CSP tower unit built. In September 2018 the CSP tower unit was first time synchronized to the power grid. In December Noor III completed a 10-day reliability test demonstrating that the project can provide continuous rated power even in the absence of sunlight. The model HE54 heliostat has 54 mirrors, each with a total reflective surface of . The solar field has 7400 of such mirrors. The tower is high. Noor III suffered a molten salt leak in 2024, causing a loss of $47m.


Noor IV

Noor IV is a 72 MW
photovoltaic power station A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...
which was completed in 2018. The total investment in this project is 750 million MAD or about million USD.


Water use

Water consumption for the Ouarzazate Noor complex is estimated at 2.5 to 3 million m3 per year for one wet-cooling project (Noor I) and two dry-cooling projects (Noor II and III). The water is sourced from the Mansour Eddahbi dam via pipeline. Water is needed for cooling, as well as to clean the reflectors regularly with high-pressure water hoses and brushes from trucks.


See also

*
List of solar thermal power stations This is a list of the largest facilities generating electricity through the use of solar thermal power, specifically concentrated solar power. Operational Under construction Announced Cancelled Decommissioned * Eurelios ...
*
Solar thermal energy Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in Industrial sector, industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified ...


References

{{Reflist, 30em Solar power stations in Morocco Energy infrastructure completed in 2016 2016 establishments in Morocco Solar thermal energy 21st-century architecture in Morocco