Ouarzazate Solar Power Station

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region in Morocco, from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project was planned to produce 582 MW. The total project's estimated cost is around $2.5 billion. The auxiliary diesel fuel system is used to maintain the minimal temperatures of the heat transfer fluid during times when the sun does not shine (including at night), to start the startup and synchronize the turbine to the electrical grid, and other auxiliary functions. The plant is able to store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, allowing for production of electricity into the night. Phase 1 comes with a full-load molten salt storage capacity of three hours. Noor II, commissioned in 2018, and Noor III, commissioned in January 2019, store energy for up to eight hours. It will cover an area of . The project was developed by ACWA Power with the help of the Spanish consortium TSK-Acciona-Sener and is the first in a series of planned developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex by the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN). The project received preferential financing from several sources including the Clean Technology Fund, African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank; the EIB has loaned over 300 million euros to the project. The facility lies in Southern Morocco, near the ancient fortified town Ait-Ben-Haddou, near Ouarzazate. Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS) – Phase 1, also referred to as Noor I CSP, has an installed capacity of 160 MW. It was connected to the Moroccan power grid on 5 February 2016. It covers and is expected to deliver 370 GWh per year. The plant is a parabolic trough type with a molten salt storage for 3 hours of low-light producing capacity. The cost of the project when it began operations was$3.