Morocco Continues Electricity Exports to Spain Amid Political Pressure

The National Office of Electricity (ONEE) is in no way worried. Moreover, "since the beginning of 2019, it continues to carry out operations to sell electricity to the Spanish electricity grid. And this, when national renewable energy production allows to release sufficient export capacity," it said.

Indeed, details L’Économiste, "during the first four months of this year, Spain imported 676 GWh from the Kingdom," a volume that has put the Spanish government under internal lobbying pressure, on the alert." In the wake of this, the Spanish Executive had risen against the low-cost electricity imports from Morocco and France, "Teresa Ribera, Minister of Energy Transition, asked for the application of a carbon tax at the border on these imports. A request that did not prosper with the EU," supports the media.

On the Moroccan side, we reassure that the electricity purchase and sale operations are carried out normally because "they meet the requirements of this market in terms of transparency and compliance with the technical and commercial rules and standards," says ONEE, which, since its accession to the Spanish "Spot" electricity market in 2000, "has always complied with the required legislation."

It should be recalled that Spain is recording an overcapacity of production that exceeds 2.4 times the peak of demand. Yet, Morocco has improved its electricity capacity thanks to the commissioning of several solar (CSP-PV Ouarzazate, PV Laâyoune and PV Boujdour), wind (Akhefenir, Iftissat, Jbel Khalladi) and thermal (Jerrada, Safi, in 2018) production facilities.

Since 2017, informs L’Économiste, the national electricity system has recorded an additional capacity of around 2,800 MW.