Breakdown of the Noor 3 Ouarzazate Power Plant: An Energy Fiasco?

Commissioned in 2018, the "Noor 3" station has a production of 150 megawatts (MW) of solar energy. In recent years, breakdowns and malfunctions have been regularly recorded on this station, without being revealed to the public. Noor 3 even stopped working for several months, according to sources at Alyaoum24, who are questioning the real motivations of the Saudi company to make a breakdown public and announce the shutdown of the solar power plant.

In a statement published on March 24, "Acwa Power" announced the cessation of its activities in "Noor 3" due to a leak in the molten salt tank. This shutdown will last until November 2024, the company specified in its note, recalling that it holds 75% of the shares in this project against 25% for the National Agency for Solar Energy - Mazen-, and that the losses from this operational interruption are estimated at 47 million dollars. Acwa Power also assured that it is working to repair the tank or build a new one.

Unlike "Noor 1" and "Noor 2", the "Noor 3" project was initiated to experiment with molten salt technology, which consists of producing energy by concentrating the thermal energy collected by solar mirrors in a large tank. Noor 3 was set up to produce 150 megawatts, while the two projects carried out in Spain based on this technology do not have a production capacity of more than 20 megawatts. This explains the fact that the Noor 3 tank has been pierced several times, having been subjected to high temperatures.

Moreover, 80% of the project cost (about 860 million dollars) was provided by international financial institutions with a guarantee from the Moroccan state via the Mazen Agency. The repayment of these loans could pose a problem with this operational interruption. For the moment, neither the Ministry of Energy Transition nor the Mazen Agency have reacted to this information. Several questions remain about the compensation of the 150 megawatts produced by Noor 3, the compensation of the announced losses and the continuation of the project.