text: The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is now the centre for four linked solar mega-plants. The plants, together with hydro and wind, will give Morocco, in north Africa, nearly half of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The project is a key part of Morocco ’s plans to use its deserts to become a global solar superpower.
  When the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The first phase, called Noor 1, will be ready in November 2015. The mirror technology it uses is more expensive than the solar panels that we can see on roofs all over the world but it will be able to produce power even after the sun goes down.
  People have known for many years that the desert is a useful place to produce solar energy. In 1986, the German scientist Gerhard Knies said that the world’s deserts receive enough energy in a few hours to make power for all the people in the world for a whole year. But the challenge is to capture that energy and take it to where it is needed. 
  At Noor 1, there are 500,000 moon-shaped solar mirrors. The 800 rows of mirrors follow the sun across the sky. They whir quietly every few minutes. 
  When they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will be as big as Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, and make 580 mega-watts of electricity, enough for a million homes.
  Solar energy will make up a third of Morocco’s renewable energy supply by 2020. Wind and hydro will make up the other two-thirds.
  “We are very proud of this project,” Morocco’s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite said. “I think it is the most important solar plant in the world.”
  The Noor 2 and 3 plants, which are planned to open in 2017, will store energy for up to eight hours. This will mean that there could be solar energy available 24/7 in the Sahara and the rest of the region.
  “We are already involved in transportation lines to take energy to the south of Morocco and Mauritania,” says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of the national renewable energy investment company. But he says the project will go further – even as far as the Middle East.
  Exporting solar energy could have stabilizing effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen). Morocco is making plans with Tunisia and they hope to export energy north across the Mediterranean, too.
  “We believe that it ’s possible to export energy to Europe but, first, we have to build the connections, which don’t yet exist, ” said Maha el-Kadiri, a Masen spokeswoman.
  Until that time, the solar energy will be used in Morocco. They might one day use solar energy to remove salt from sea water.