Award of the EPC Contract for the World’s Largest Solar CSP Plant in Ouarzazate
ACWA Power Ouarzazate has on Monday 29 April 2013, awarded an EPC Contract to the Spanish consortium composed of Acciona, Sener and TSK to construct the 160 MWe Ouarzazate parabolic trough Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Independent Power Project (IPP) in Morocco. The EPC Contractor has commenced engineering and procurement for the plant in accordance with a Limited Notice to Proceed Agreement. The EPC consortium will procure a significant part of the scope locally in Morocco.
ACWA Power Ouarzazate is a company owned by ACWA Power, Saudi Arabia; the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), Morocco; Aries and TSK both of Spain. Ouarzazate 160MWe CSP plant with 3 hours of thermal storage is today the world’s largest parabolic trough CSP power plant and the first utility size thermal solar generation project in Morocco. The project is located in Souss-Massa-Draa, province of Ouarzazate in Morocco, approximately 200 km south of Marrakesh.
Padmanathan went on to say:
The Operation and Maintenance will be undertaken by NOMAC, a subsidiary of ACWA Power. Masen will be the off-taker of the energy produced according to the 25-year PPA signed on 19 November 2012.
The 160 MWe Ouarzazate CSP IPP Project is to be developed on a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis. It is the first project for Masen in a series of several planned developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex. The Ouarzazate complex is set to be developed into a 500MWe solar complex incorporating several utility-scale solar power plants using various solar technologies.
Whilst Morocco currently relies heavily on coal and other conventional sources to meet its energy needs, the country is well endowed with renewable energy resources that offer sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. With the CSP technology used, the project will serve to abate a “green approach” saving approximately 470,000 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions every year of operation.