Estimating the Renewable Energy Potential in Morocco: Solar energy as a case study

Abstract

The issue of climate change is expanding over the world. Thus, the interest in renewable energies is growing to minimize the effect of this phenomenon. Environmental policies are changing in different countries (including Morocco); they focus more on the integration and the development of renewable energy projects. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential of Morocco to host solar power plants from both technologies: Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaics (PV). To have an accurate study, we need to choose the right criteria pursuing a specific methodology. For this reason, four selection criteria were chosen: climate, orography, location and water resource. To calculate the weight/importance of each one of the criteria the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used. Once obtained, the weights are applied on the map of each criteria to generate a final ranking map which classifies the regions according to their potential. Results show that Morocco possesses high potential in both technologies and especially in the south. Finally, this work is the first in its field to include all Morocco in the study area.