Offshore wind power: Soon a pilot wind farm off Essaouira

Power generation from offshore wind energy will soon be a reality in Morocco. The Moroccan Sustainable Energy Agency (Masen) is on the penultimate stage of the path towards the construction of its first offshore wind farm, to be built in the Essaouira-Agadir region.

In particular, the company has yet to issue a call for tenders to select the consultant who will carry out the feasibility study in the Central Zone, one of the three areas identified by the pre-feasibility study completed by DNV two years ago. According to our sources, this will be done as early as this October, as the EIB has granted Masen a 2 million euro grant and is also ready to provide technical assistance to help it reach this stage.

The chosen consultant’s tasks will include assessing the project’s technical and economic feasibility, carrying out preparatory studies and analyzing the project’s environmental, social and economic impacts. The consultant will also advise Masen on the type of wind turbines (equipment) to be adopted. Will they be floating offshore wind turbines, or rather fixed-foundation offshore wind turbines, which are apparently best suited to the areas off Morocco’s west coast? 

The consultant will also have to confirm whether to stay within the 2 GW of electricity production planned for this zone, or go beyond this ceiling. Why? Because Masen has chosen to launch its pilot offshore wind farm in this Central Zone, based on the results of the pre-feasibility study, which showed that conditions there are the most favorable. With wind speeds exceeding  nine meters per second and water depths of up to 1,000 meters, it is the most ideal of the three zones on the Atlantic coast for the installation of offshore wind turbines, says MASEN.

Aziz DIOUF