The Ouarzazate solar complex in southern Morocco will be a "vector for renewable energy and energy supply security", indicates the European Investment Bank (EIB) in its December newsletter.

The Ouarzazate complex will also contribute to creating jobs and promoting the development of an integrated local solar industry, underlines the EIB, which will contribute to the financing of this major project to the tune of 100 million euros.

The EIB, which plans to triple this contribution as the project is implemented, notes that once fully completed, the Ouarzazate complex will be one of the largest in the world.

During the first phase of operation alone (by 2015), adds the same source, the Ouarzazate solar power plant will induce a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 110 thousand tonnes per year, noting that this project, the first of the Moroccan Solar Plan, is the most important implemented so far under the Mediterranean Solar Plan supported by the EU.

The Ouarzazate Complex will produce, initially, up to 160 MW of electricity per year, but once the project is fully operational, this capacity could be quadrupled, enough to power a city of 250 thousand inhabitants. Its renewable energy capacity will be increased to approximately 20 GW by 2020.

The Ouarzazate project benefits from the support of a consortium of European public investors who have committed 345 million euros, which represents more than half the cost of the first phase of the operation.

On the occasion of the signing, last November in Marrakech, of the documents relating to the financing, construction, and operation of the first power plant of this Solar Complex, under the chairmanship of HM King Mohammed VI, the Vice-President of the EIB, Philippe de Fontaine Vive, declared that the Ouarzazate solar complex is "an important step for the success of the Mediterranean Solar Plan" and represents a strong signal for a greener future in terms of technological, economic, and energy development as well as in terms of employment.

The Ouarzazate power plant will implement a concentrated parabolic trough sensor technology that works on the following principle: mirrors concentrate sunlight over a vast area and this energy is then converted into heat to drive a turbine connected to an electricity generator.