The Additional Financing (AF) supports the development and construction of the next project in Morocco’s solar power program. The Noor-Midelt Solar Power Project is located on 4,141 hectares (ha) of land 20 km north of the town of Midelt in central Morocco, in the high plains surrounding the Moulouya river, between the Middle and High Atlas Mountains. The first phase of Noor-Midelt consists of two separate plants, NoorMidelt I and II, each with 150-190 MW CSP capacity and a minimum of 5 hours of thermal storage. The capacity of the PV component, which is expected to provide daytime generation, is left to the bidders’ discretion but cannot exceed night-time net capacity from CSP by more than 20 percent. The PV component of each plant could be approximately 150-210 MW, making the total capacity of each of the proposed plants between 300 and 400 MW and the total capacity of this first phase 600-800 MW, with an overall cost of about US$2.1 billion.

The proposed AF will contribute to finance construction of the Noor-Midelt I and II plants through an IBRD financing of US$100 million and a CTF loan of US$25 million, in addition to the US$100 million reallocated from Component 2 of P131256. The project will be developed through the formation of a partnership between MASEN and a competitively-selected private-sector developer.