The first portion of North Africa’s largest solar installation was successfully connected to the grid in Morocco, Bloomberg reports.
The 160MW installation in the Ouarzazate province is the first phase of the Noor project. The initial phase costs US$894 million according to the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy. It was designed by Spanish firms Sener SA and Acciona SA, as well as Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power International.
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Once completed, the Noor project will have a combined capacity of 2GW by 2020 — with the total cost of the complex currently tabbed at US$9 billion.
The site is being financed by a number of development banks, including the French Development Agency, the European Investment Bank and Germany’s KfW. The World Bank and the Clean Technology Fund each provided US$168 million, while the African Development Bank dealt out US$188 million.
