Ouarzazate Solar Power Station

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2021-07-31 19:00:04

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region in Morocco, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power plant. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project is planned to produce 582 MW at peak when finished. It is being built in three phases and in four parts. The total project's estimated cost is around $2.5 billion.[3][4]

The plant will be able to store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, allowing for production of electricity into the night. Phase 1 comes with a full-load molten salt storage capacity of 3 hours. Noor II, commissioned in 2018,[5] and Noor III, commissioned in January 2019, store energy for up to eight hours.[6] It will cover an area of 2,500 hectares (6,178 acres).[citation needed ]

The project was developed by ACWA Power with the help of the Spanish consortium TSK-Acciona-Sener and is the first in a series of planned developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex by the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN).[7] The project received preferential financing from several sources including the Clean Technology Fund, African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank; the EIB has loaned over 300 million euros to the project.[8][9]