Sola Terra, the Swiss renewable firm plans to set up around 16 photovoltaic plants in the sunny regions of southern Morocco.
The sites, totaling 25 megawatts of energy will be in the areas of Ourzazate, Ain Bni Mathar, Foum Al Oued, Boujdour, and Sebkat Tah.
Sola Terra invests heavily in the Middle East and already considerable share of green energy production is going on in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Turkey, and Morocco.
The sun, unlike oil energy, is not part of the economic culture of the Middle East, but that will change, said, David Heimhofer, president, Terra Sola.
Foreign firms are eager to count on the feed-in-tariffs offered by Morocco government and Portugal companies like Martifer Solar already has business in the United Arab Emirates.
European companies usually go to European banks for financing and establishing themselves in the Middle East and MENA region.
The recent crumbling of the solar power consortium Desertec has been a disappointment to the renewable energy community.
The idea consisted of establishing a pan-European North African, as well as Middle East energy grid with solar energy collected in the MENA region which could then be shipped via cables to Europe.
However, in spite of the consortium collapse, Europeans are still seeing green opportunities in the MENA region.
Sabeena Wahid
editor@greentechlead.com