The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen) has published a list of prequalified bidders for a tender for the construction of the Noor Midelt 2 power plant. Masen launched the tender in July 2020.

The facility, planned for the Drâa-Tafilalet region in northeastern Morocco, will have 400 MW of capacity. It will include a CSP plant and a PV unit, with two hours of storage.

The list includes 24 bidders, such as Spanish group Cobra Instalaciones Y Servicios, S.A., a consortium of French energy giant EDF and UAE-based Masdar, and Italian energy company Enel with Taqa Morocco. Other bidders are a consortium of Spanish utility Iberdrola, China’s Dongfang Electric International Corp., and Morocco-based Gaia Project SARL, and a group including Saudi energy company ACWA Power, Belgium-based International Power SA, and Morocco-based Nareva Holding SA.

The Noor Midelt 1 plant, an 800 MW solar plant combining CSP and PV with 5 hours of storage capacity, is to be built and operated by EDF Renewables (35%), Abu Dhabi Future Energy CO (30%), Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN) (25%) and Green Of Africa (10%).

Local media outlets report that the site is behind schedule. Combining PV and CSP optimizes the project’s levelized cost of energy (LCOE), around 0.68 Moroccan dirhams ($0.069) per kWg, according to a figure from Masdar for the first phase Noor Midelt 1.