The Jbel Lahdi wind farm will provide the Moroccan city with 100% renewable energy

La ciudad de Esauira será autosuficiente energéticamente para 2023

photo_camera AFP/ABDELHAK SENNA - Morocco wind farm

Morocco is once again a pioneer in renewable energy. Thanks to the Jbel Lahdi wind farm project, the city of Essaouira in Morocco will be totally self-sufficient in terms of energy by 2030, when its construction is completed. Construction will begin next week and is expected to take around 25 to 26 months.  

Adil El Malik, governor of the prefecture, stressed that Essaouira will use 100% renewable energy. "The project has the green light to start whenever it wants," said the governor. For its realisation, a structure will be created, a wind farm called Jbel Lahdi, which will involve an investment of almost 328 million dollars, generating a power of 270 megawatts, which will be produced by some fifty turbines.  

The facility will generate an expected energy output of around 900 gigawatts per year, which directly contributes to increasing the country's wind power capacity to 5 gigawatts. This figure improves on the plans to achieve by 2030 to combat climate change and reduce the greenhouse effect. This new wind farm is part of a programme in which other structures will also be set up in Midelt, Boujdor and Tiskrad-Tarfaya

Parque eólico de Marruecos

In addition, another great news is that everything that has to do with this project will reap very good economic data and opportunities for unemployed citizens, as at least 400 people will be needed to build the park and also about 20 people who will have the mission to be during the operation phase. It will also lead Morocco to achieve its goal of achieving 52% renewable energy use by 2030, something that King Mohammed VI had already stated in 2009 as a goal of his reign, citing the importance of using the ecological resources that the country produces. He stated that by 2050, the country will be 100 per cent green.  

André Azoulay, advisor to HM the King and president-founder of the Essaouira-Mogador Association, presented a few months ago the "Mogagreen" project, which had the plan to make Essaouira a pioneer in waste recycling in Morocco and Africa. "It will be a cutting-edge eco-city with the ambition to control and drastically reduce in the short and medium term the volume of its solid waste that can be recycled," Azoulay told the press conference.  

Morocco has become one of the world's leading green investors. The British firm Ernst & Young, published a list of 40 nations with the most potential for climate change, placing the Maghreb country at the top of the list in the MENA region. Also, Mark Leybourne, energy specialist at the firm stated that "Morocco has a fantastic wind resource, too attractive to ignore. It has great potential to develop its wind power capacity, suggesting that the North African country is poised to become a key energy supplier to the European market". 

Aerogeneradores en parque eólico

Recently, the technology magazine MIT Technology Review praised Morocco's work with the environment in its "Green Future" report, as it has become the first country in the Middle East and Africa to be a leader in the use of renewable energies, allocating 5.65 billion dollars to these issues over the last ten years. The region also has a significant energy potential and has all the resources that can be obtained to look forward to a better future. By 2019, Morocco had reached 3,685 megawatts, 700 of which came from solar energy, 1,215 from wind energy and 1,700 from hydropower. These are changes that have brought great benefits to the territory, since thanks to the use and production of energy, it has been possible to increase income, expand job offers, increase the development of the agricultural sector, and so on

More in Economy and business