Morocco Connects First Unit of Solar Complex to Grid

The first phase of North Africa’s largest solar-power complex was connected to the grid in Morocco, with a generating capacity of 160 megawatts.

The solar thermal plant in the Ouarzazate province is the first unit of the Noor project to be completed. It uses parabolic troughs to focus the sun’s energy on heating a fluid that in turn powers a generation turbine.

Noor, meaning “light” in Arabic, is expected to have a combined capacity of 2 gigawatts by 2020 after all the units are complete. The complex will cost about $9 billion and will be spread over at least four ...