World’s Largest Concentrated Solar Plant Opened in Morocco

The first phase of the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant was launched in the Souss-Massa-Drâa area in Morocco.
It is part of Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex which will produce enough energy for more than one million Moroccan households on completion by 2018.
Key facts

• The plant aims to reduce dependence on fossil fuels with the use of renewable energy and move towards low carbon development.
• It will reduce the fossil fuel dependence by about 2 and half million tons and also lower carbon emissions by 760,000 tons per year.
• The entire project will be implemented in 3 phases involving construction of Noor I (160MW), Noor II (200MW) and Noor III (150MW) in each phase.
• The World Bank through its Clean Technology Fund has partially financed construction of the plant by providing US 97 million dollars loan.

Concentrated Solar Power Plant

• In this plant, sun light is focused or concentrated using mirrors to heat up a liquid mixed with water at around 400⁰C to produce steam which drives a turbine and generates electrical power.
• CSP is more expensive to install than the widely used conventional photovoltaic solar panels. However, it has advantage of storing of solar energy for nights and cloudy days.
• During the day, heat concentrated from the mirrors is also used to melt salt filled in the cylinder. This melted salt can stay hot enough at night to provide power up to 3 hours.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016