OCP Group has announced a plan to generate electricity for its Moroccan operations with 200 MW of solar power plants and $110.5 million in financing.
Moroccan state-owned phosphate miner OCP Group has announced that it will build four solar power plants at two of its four mining sites in Morocco.
The company announced that it will build two solar power plants of 22 MW and 45 MW in Benguerir and two capacities of 30 MW and 105 MW in Khouribga. These two localities have Morocco’s largest phosphate reserves, and the country alone concentrates about 70% of the world’s resources discovered so far.
The solar farms have a combined capacity of 202 MW, all dependent on 540 W mono-PERC modules mounted on solar trackers. The facilities receive electricity for the operations of the construction sites. Four power plants will be commissioned in the first quarter of 2024.
“Construction should start at the end of April, as the building permit had already been granted in the last quarter of 2022,” a spokesperson for OCP Group said. pv-lehti France.
The company received EUR 100 million ($110.5 million) in financing for the projects from the International Finance Corp. (IFC).
“Solar power plants provide a cost-effective source of energy, which contributes to OCP Group’s overall competitiveness,” the company said in a statement. “We intend to cover 100% of our electricity needs with wind, solar and cogeneration energy by 2027.”
The project is part of OCP’s 130 billion dollar (11.7 billion euro) investment program launched at the end of 2022, which aims to increase its production capacity from 12 million tons to 20 million tons by 2027.
According to the Mining Act, the phosphate industry, along with other mining activities, is one of the most polluted sectors in the world. Mining alone accounts for more than 6 percent of the world’s emissions. The OCP group did not want to specify the part of the activity’s consumption (and not the nature of the activity) that is covered by solar energy.
