Swedish company Azelio has installed an energy storage facility at the 580MW Noor Ouarzazate solar complex located in Morocco.
Developed in partnership with the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (Masen), the storage facility is designed to efficiently store renewable energy from solar and wind power project. The stored energy will be made available as electricity and heat.
Renewable energy storage system can be scalable to 100MW
The system, which is scalable from 100kW to 100MW, uses recycled aluminium as a storage medium, and contains no rare minerals.
Masen CEO Mustapha Bakkoury said: “Our collaboration with Azelio is a good example of Masen’s R&D strategy to evaluate, co-develop and promote disruptive solutions.”
The renewable energy storage system, which with 24h clean power production, has been installed as part of a joint technical and business development agreement signed between Azelio and Masen.
Azelio CEO Jonas Eklind said: “We have an ambitious development and commercialization of our technology, where Masen’s profound experience in renewable energy is of great value.
“Being present on one of the world’s leading arenas for renewable energy marks a big step for Azelio and is the platform from where we take the next step in becoming a global industrial player.”
Azelio said a verification of the storage is planned to commence during the first quarter of 2020 while the commercial installations are scheduled later the same year, followed by volume production in 2021.
The Noor Ouarzazate power project is made up of three-phases with the first phase involving the 160MW Noor Ouarzazate I CSP plant, while the second phase comprises the 200MW Noor Ouarzazate II and the 150MW Noor Ouarzazate III projects.
The third phase of the project involves the construction of the Noor Ouarzazate IV PV plant.
The solar project forms part of the Moroccan Government’s Solar Energy Programme, which aims to develop 2GW of solar power by 2020.
