The increasingly important role of decentralized solar energy in Morocco

Abstract

To our knowledge, they were no detailed numbers published recently on decentralized solar energy in Morocco, even if it starts to gain importance. In the country, demand for photovoltaic solar modules has experienced three major phases: a long period of "relative gloom" (1995-2010) between two phases of rapid growth (1985-1995 and 2010-2018). Today, the inevitable acceleration of solar PV systems connected to the grid has become a reality, despite the absence of any regulation in a legislative framework that has become permissive. It is increasingly urgent to adopt an Application Decree of the net-metering approach to encourage subscribers to declare their solar PV installations to allow verifying that the installed inverters are of sufficient quality and that they do not send unwanted harmonics in the network. At the same time, butane gas, in addition to its use in cooking, is widely preferred for heating domestic water, because of the subsidy. This subsidy is unfair competition to solar water heaters and should be removed because it greatly benefits the richest quintile of the population[i], slightly increasesMorocco's energy dependency by pushing for the waste of so cheap butane gas and surely encourages its use in pumping for agricultural irrigation.

[i] Amin BENNOUNA, (in French) "Energy: The poorer we are, the less we are subsidized!", Finance News Weekly No. 722, 05 June (2014) https: ///DOI.ORG/10.13140/RG.2.2.26437.09447