Morocco officially launches its mega-project for a solar park in Ouarzazate

Morocco officially launched on Friday the construction work for its Ouarzazate solar park, the starting point of an ambitious programme that should allow the kingdom to establish itself as a stronghold in terms of renewable energy production by 2020.The thermo-solar power plant, the first phase of the solar park project in Ouarzazate, "is the largest of its kind in the world", declared the director general of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), Mustapha Bakkoury, during the official ceremony presided over by King Mohammed VI.Its construction comes to "reinforce the will (...) to optimise the exploitation of Morocco's natural resources, to preserve its environment" and to "sustain its development", he added, quoted by the MAP agency.With a cost of seven billion dirhams (approximately 650 million euros), this first power plant, whose construction was entrusted to a predominantly…