The Moroccan electricity company Nareva and Enel Green Power have signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) and the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN) for the 270MW Jbel Lahdid wind farm project.

The project will be located at Jbel Lahdid, near Essaouira on the Atlantic coast of the Cherifian kingdom. The park will be built as part of Morocco’s Integrated Wind Energy Programme which aims to build six wind farms with a total capacity of 1000MW by 2024.

Jbel Lahdid wind farm

The US $314m Jbel Lahdid wind farm is the third installation of Morocco’s wind power programme, after the Midelt (180MW) and Boujdour (300MW) wind farms which are currently under construction.  The last two wind farms of the Programme will be located in Tiskrad, in the province of Tarfaya (100MW) and Tangier II in the province of Fahs Anjra (70MW).

Morocco’s wind power programme is divided into two components. The first involves the construction of a 150MW wind farm in Taza. The second component will enable 850MW of electricity to be supplied to Morocco’s national electricity network. It is being developed by the Moroccan electricity company Nareva and Enel Green Power. The Italian-Moroccan consortium has been awarded the right to design, finance, build, operate and manage the wind farm following a call for tenders in 2016.

The Integrated Wind Energy Programme should make it possible to avoid the emissions of about 2.38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, equivalent to the annual emissions of a city the size of Casablanca.