Morocco Trials Floating Solar Panels to Conserve Water and Produce Electricity

 Morocco, facing its worst drought in decades, has started a pilot project using floating solar panels to reduce water evaporation while generating electricity.

At a large reservoir near Tangier, thousands of “floatovoltaic” panels cover the water, protecting it from the sun and producing green energy. Authorities plan to use this electricity to power the nearby Tanger Med port, and if successful, the technology could be expanded across the country.

Between October 2022 and September 2023, Morocco’s water reserves lost over 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water every day to evaporation, worsened by temperatures averaging 1.8°C above normal. Combined with low rainfall, reservoirs nationwide are now at about one-third of their capacity. At Tangier, the reservoir loses roughly 3,000 cubic meters daily, doubling in hot summer months. The floating panels could cut evaporation by about 30 percent.

The government has installed over 400 floating platforms so far, with plans to expand to 22,000 panels covering 10 hectares of the 123-hectare reservoir, generating around 13 megawatts—enough for the Tanger Med complex. Trees will also be planted along the reservoir banks to reduce wind-driven evaporation.

Climate expert Mohammed-Said Karrouk calls the project “pioneering” but notes that the reservoir is too large and irregular to be fully covered, and fluctuating water levels could damage the panels. Over the past decade, Morocco’s water reserves from rainfall have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 18 billion cubic meters in the 1980s to just five billion.

Currently, Morocco relies mainly on desalination, producing about 320 million cubic meters of potable water yearly, with plans to increase this to 1.7 billion by 2030. Experts say urgent action is needed to transfer surplus water from northern dams to central and southern regions, a strategy already partially implemented through the “water highway” canal system, with plans for further expansion.

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