POWER June 2022 Intl - 6

Morocco Project Could Support
UK's Renewable Goals, Hydrogen
Economy
A project to bring solar and wind energy
from a 10.5-GW project in Morocco to
the UK will feature what is likely the
world's longest subsea, high-voltage direct
current (HVDC) cables. The importation
of renewable energy also could
provide the UK with another avenue for
production of alternative fuels, such as
hydrogen, to help decarbonize industry,
a major focus of the country's climate
strategy announced last year that
looked at offshore wind as a driver of a
hydrogen energy economy.
The Morocco project has piqued
the interest of renewable energy advocates
and those who envision it as
a model for intercontinental clean energy
projects that could serve multiple
purposes. In the case of the UK, it also
could be part of the country's recent
push to reduce reliance on energy imports
from Russia, after that country's
invasion of Ukraine moved many nations
to reduce or eliminate their use
of Russian-produced energy.
The subsea cables for the Morocco
project will be produced by XLCC, which
is building a factory in Hunterston, Scotland.
The facility's first manufacturing
contract is
for the Xlinks Morocco-UK
Power Project; Xlinks is a UK-based renewables
company, and is creating an
export-led cable manufacturing industry
in Britain via XLCC. The group will manufacture
four, 2,361-mile-long subsea cables
(Figure 1) for the project, with the
first phase connected between 2025 and
2027, bringing electricity from Morocco
to a site in Alverdiscott, North Devon,
in the southwest of the UK. XLCC has
said the project will almost double current
global production of HVDC cables.
XLCC in April signed a contract to use
British-made steel in the project, which
is expected to need about 90,000 tonnes
of steel.
The solar, wind, and battery storage
project will cover an area of 579 square
miles in Morocco, and connect exclusively
to the UK site, following a shallow
water route from Morocco past Spain,
Portugal, and France to the UK. Xlinks
said the project will cost $21.9 billion,
and include 7 GW of solar generation
capacity and 3.5 GW of wind generation
capacity, in addition to 5 GW/20 GWh of
onsite battery energy storage.
The first cable is expected to transport
electricity from the Morocco site in
early 2027, with the other three cables
scheduled to begin transporting power in
2029. Xlinks has an agreement with the
UK's National Grid for two 1.8-GW connections
at Alverdiscott. The company
said when complete, the project will
supply as much as 8% of the UK's total
electricity demand.
Xlinks in late April said it has secured
about £40 million ($50.3 million) in development
funding, and is now looking
for investors to secure the budget
to build even more massive wind and
solar farms in Morocco, along with
supporting its UK-based operations to
manufacture subsea cables. Sir Dave
Lewis, Xlinks' chairman, told Britain's
Sky News, " The Moroccan government
has recognized that exporting green
[energy] is a very important part of their
economic plan going forward, so they
have an export strategy. "
Xlinks said Morocco was chosen as
the site of the solar and wind facility because
it " benefits from ideal solar and
wind resources, required to develop renewable
projects that could guarantee
suitable power production throughout
the year. " The company said Morocco
has the third-highest Global Horizontal
Irradiance (GHI) in North Africa, more
than twice that of the UK. GHI is the
total solar radiation incident on a horizontal
surface; it is the sum of Direct
Normal Irradiance, Diffuse Horizontal
Irradiance, and ground-reflected radiation.
It often is used as a measure of
flat-panel photovoltaic output.
Morocco's government has a goal
of having 52% of its installed generation
capacity to come from renewable
resources by 2030. " You can generate
three times more energy per square
meter in Morocco than you could ever
do in the UK, " Lewis told Britain's ITV
News last fall when the project was
first announced. " Whilst we can and we
should go faster in the removal of emissions
from fossil fuels, progress is being
made. The technology exists to replace
that with renewable energy but we need
to invest and probably invest quicker. The
idea that we can lower the price of electricity
in a renewable, sustainable way-
we absolutely have got to be doing that. "
British officials in recent weeks have
1. XLCC is manufacturing subsea cables for an Xlinks project that will bring renewable energy
from Morocco to the UK. XLCC is building four, 2,361-mile-long cables. The first cable is expected
to bring electricity from Morocco to a site in North Devon, in the southwest of the UK,
by 2027. Source: Shutterstock
6
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looked at the cost of importing energy,
including from renewable resources, to
end reliance on energy from Russia. A
recent report from industry association
Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), formerly
Oil and Gas UK, said the country needs
about £60 billion ($79 billion) simply to
achieve its goal of quadrupling its offshore
wind power capacity to 40 GW by
2030. OEUK CEO Deirdre Michie in discussing
the report said, " Energy security
is now a matter of national security.
Our policymakers need to plan not just
for the coming elections but the coming
decades. Offshore wind, the most
POWER | June 2022

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