Morocco approves green hydrogen projects worth $32.5 bln
The Moroccan government's green hydrogen committee approved projects worth 319 billion dirhams (32.5 billion dollars) on Thursday. These projects aim to produce ammonia and steel, as well as industrial fuel. The Moroccan committee selected Ortus of the United States, Acciona from Spain and Nordex from Germany to produce green ammonia.
It said that a project to produce ammonia by Taqa in the UAE and Cepsa in Spain, as well as a plan to make ammonia fuel and steel by Nareva of Morocco, was also approved.
Acwa Power, a Saudi Arabian company, will produce steel while UEG and China Three Gorges, two Chinese companies, will work together to produce ammonia.
It said that Morocco would offer up to 30,000 acres of land for each project once an agreement preliminary was signed.
The government is hoping that green hydrogen, produced by electrolysing water using renewable energy, will help them meet their domestic energy goals and boost exports into the European Union. This comes after the EU announced the Green Deal for reducing carbon emissions. It calls for the importation of 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by the year 2030.
In March of last year, Morocco announced that a first phase will allocate 300,000 acres to integrated projects ranging from electricity generation using renewable energies, electrolysis, to the conversion green hydrogen into methanol, ammonia and synthetic fuel.
TotalEnergies, a French company, signed an agreement with the Moroccan government to develop green hydrogen in October. Engie also agreed to work with Moroccan phosphates giant OCP for ammonia production from green hydrogen.
Morocco wants renewables to account for 52% of its installed capacity in 2030, up from 45% today. (Reporting and editing by Kirby Donovan; Ahmed Eljechtimi)
(source: Reuters)
