On a high plateau near Ouarzazate — the Moroccan city known as the “door to the desert” and home to Atlas Film Studios — stands Noor, one of the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) complexes. Spanning nearly 500 hectares, Noor uses roughly two million mirrors to focus sunlight onto a 247‑meter tower, heating molten salt to about 600 °C. That heat generates steam to drive turbines and, thanks to the thermal storage, can produce electricity hours after sunset.
The plant can supply energy for more than a million homes and has become a headline renewable project for Morocco. Yet for many residents around Ouarzazate, electricity remains expensive and butane gas continues to be widely used. Noor’s clean generation has not translated into broadly cheaper local power, in part because Morocco’s overall electricity system still depends heavily on fossil fuels, particularly coal. According to Intissar Fakir of the Middle East Institute, fossil‑fuel electricity is responsible for roughly 48% of the country’s energy‑related greenhouse gas emissions, a dependence that slows the transition to renewables.
The cost burden is significant: Moroccans spend about $110 of an average $550 monthly income on electricity. In hot, dry regions where air conditioning or fans are common — Ouarzazate regularly tops 40 °C in summer — energy bills matter. Morocco imports around 90% of its coal, oil and gas, leaving it exposed to global price swings and putting pressure on public budgets, which in turn fuels urgency to shift toward domestic renewable resources.
Morocco has nonetheless set ambitious renewable goals and made visible progress. The government targets 52% of electricity from renewables by 2030 and aims for 70% clean power capacity by 2050, with a pledge to phase out coal by 2040. The country’s sunny interior and windy coasts enable those plans, and Noor is one of roughly two dozen large solar, wind and hydro projects already built, with more planned.
But deployment and integration lag behind nominal capacity. While Morocco has on paper enough renewable installations to generate about 46% of its electricity, actual renewable generation in 2023 delivered only a little more than half of that theoretical potential. Experts point to limited grid capacity and insufficient storage as the main bottlenecks: intermittent generation from solar and wind needs transmission upgrades and more storage to be reliably usable day‑to‑day and to enable exports of clean power.
Critics also argue that the focus on megaprojects like Noor overlooks decentralized options that can deliver quicker, more local benefits. Rooftop photovoltaic systems for homes, businesses and farms can reduce transmission losses, lower bills for end users, and avoid many integration challenges faced by large plants.
Environmental and social concerns have accompanied the megaproject approach. CSP installations require regular mirror cleaning to remove sand and dust, which can be water intensive in arid regions. Large areas of grazing land near Ouarzazate were allocated to Noor with limited local consultation, and many residents say they have seen few direct benefits. Some locals complain that electricity remains costly and that concentrated mirrors have altered local temperatures. These grievances underscore that technical success does not automatically produce broad social gains.
Observers describe Noor as both a technological showcase and a test case. It demonstrates Morocco’s capacity to build ambitious renewable infrastructure, but also highlights the limits of such projects when the wider energy system remains anchored in fossil fuels and when local environmental and social impacts are insufficiently addressed.
Noor has raised Morocco’s profile as a renewable energy innovator. Its long‑term success, however, will depend on modernizing the national grid, expanding storage, managing local environmental impacts, and balancing large‑scale plants with decentralized solutions that bring more immediate benefits to communities.