Morocco Energy Situation

Overview

Kingdom of Morocco
Capital	Rabat (34°02′N 6°51′W)
Official language(s)	Arabic
Government	Constitutional monarchy
King	Mohammed VI
Prime Minister	Abbas El Fassi
Total area	710,850 km2
Population	32,200,000 (2009 estimate)
GDP (nominal)	$104.031 billion
GDP Per capita (nominal)	$3,161
Currency	Moroccan dirham (MAD)
Time zone	WET (UTC+0)
Calling code	+212

 

Morocco is located in North Africa and has borders to Algeria and Western Sahara, with coasts towards the North Atlantic Ocean as well as the Mediterranean Sea (see figure 1). In Morocco, a Mediterranean climate is prevalent and in the north-west, it becomes more Saharan-continental and thus extreme to the south-west and southern regions. The Atlas-Mountains run from the south-west to north-east and form the climatic border: in the north-western part, summers are dry and warm, the
winters mild and rainy. East of the Atlas Mountains, the climate is continental, with hot summers and cold winters, with little rain. The wind is generally highest at the northern and south-western coast and on the eastern part of the Atlas-Mountains.

The official language in Morocco is Arabic, but there are also Berber dialects spoken and French often is the language of business, government and diplomacy. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with Mohammed VI as the king who appoints the prime minister. The current prime minister is Abbas al-Fassi, voted into office at legislative elections held in October 2007 which can be considered as relatively free, but with a very low voter participation (37 % of which 19 % proved invalid). Foreign policy is oriented towards the West. Morocco aims to mediate between Arabic, African and international partners and has close connections to other developing countries with similar intentions.1 A potential for conflict is the unresolved status of Western Sahara, which Morocco claims, but is under an UN-administered cease-fire status since 1991. As the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) has been accepted by the African Union, Morocco since then left the union. Morocco is a member of the WTO and has signed free trade agreements with the European Union, the United States and Turkey. In 2008, Morocco got the status of »statut avancé«, which gives access to more European programmes. In addition, it is part of a free trade zone with Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan. In 2007, the main export partners were France (27.9 %), Spain (20.8 %) and UK (5.2 %), import partners were France (15.8 %), Spain (10.4 %) and Italy (6.4 %). Morocco is strongly involved in co-operations of North African as well as European countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.2 Although the main trade partner is still the EU and Africa only accounted for 5.6 % of foreign trade transactions, its trade with other countries of the Arab Maghreb Union is steadily growing and doubled from 2004 to 2008 to around 1.4 billion €. Morocco has also signed the Agadir Agreement to establish a free trade zone between the Arabic Mediterranean nations with Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan, in effect since March 2007.3 Experts of the World Bank, other banks and investment companies see large potential for economic growth in Morocco and classify the country as a potential market of the future.4 In 2008, the inflation rate was 4.6 %. In 2007, 15 % of the´Moroccan population lived below the poverty line.5 The per capita income in Morocco is within the middle group of African countries.

Energy situation

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Energy Supply

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Electricity

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Energy Consumption

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Energy demand

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Electricity

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Access rate

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Market situation for different energy technologies and services

Solar Energy

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Wind Energy

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Biomass

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Biogas

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Hydro Power

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Other renewable Sources

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Key problems of the energy sector

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Policy framework, laws and regulations

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General Energy policy, Energy strategy

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Important Laws and regulations

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Specific strategies (Biomass, renewable energies, rural electrification, energy access strategy etc.)

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Institutional set up in the energy sector

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Governmental institutions Private sector (enterprises, NGOs)

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Activities of other donors, activities of NGOs

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Existing projects

• Biogas technology in Morocco (region of Souss-Massa)
  
• Feed-in tariffs (FIT) in Morocco
  

Publications

• Trieb, F. et al. (2006): Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power, TRANS-CSP, Final Report, Stuttgart, 2006.
  

External links

• Kingdom of Morocco (official portal)
  
• Morocco entry at The World Factbook