The Moroccan state electricity company has launched a tender for the construction of 5 wind farms. Two of those farms will be located in occupied Western Sahara.
In the tender, made public on 6 January 2012, Morocco's state-owned power utility ONE stated to take bids until 9 March for “the development, design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance” of five wind projects, with a total power generation capacity of 850 MW".
The wind farms will be located in Tangiers (150MW), Koudia al Badia (300MW), Taza (150MW), Al Aaiun (300MW) and Boujdour (100MW).
But the two latter locations are not in Morocco proper. El Aaiun and Boujdour are two towns along the coastline of the part of Western Sahara that Morocco has illegally annexed after its 1975 invasion.
“Participants in the tender need to be aware that they are effectively applying to take part in the construction of energy infrastructure on occupied land”, says Sara Eyckmans from Western Sahara Resource Watch. “That is not something a responsible operator would wish to be associated with. We encourage interested parties to limit their participation to Morocco proper.”
Bidding firms or consortia making the first cut, will be invited to bid in an international tender, expected to be launched in the second quarter of this year.
Morocco aims to raise its power generation from wind farms to 2000 MW by 2020, and yet another 2000 MW from solar power stations. Together, the wind and solar energy development schemes should reduce Morocco’s annual imports of fossil fuels by 2.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent. It is reported that Morocco aims to export any surplus electricity to Europe via Spain, where it has a power market trading license that allows it to sell electricity. ONE doubled the capacity of its interconnector to Spain to 400 MW in 2007.
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