Morocco to light up Britain

Brexit impact

This comes at a time when the European Union is in a state of uncertainty, economic decline, and internal fragmentation.

Trade between London and Rabat rose to $3bn in 2022, leveraged by the new regional geostrategic situation after the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union (Brexit) and Morocco's "privileged partner" status within the EU market in terms of customs benefits.

This allows British companies to expand into Morocco and the rest of the Maghreb, having gotten rid of Brussels' red tape and Strasbourg's parliamentary bureaucracy.

The Rabat-London rapprochement is currently fuelled by coldness and a deep crisis in Morocco's relations with France, the fallout from the Russian war in Ukraine, the international rush for African resources, and London's need for a reliable ally in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

In recent years, the frequency of official visits exchanged between the United Kingdom and Morocco has accelerated. The same applies to signing dozens of economic, trade, investment, financial, agricultural, climate, cultural, scientific, and tourism agreements, as well as security and strategic military deals.

Historic relations

An old saying holds some truth here: "Better to accompany a king than to accompany a president." With this wisdom, London is reclaiming some of the shares France had seized in a 1904 agreement in which it gave up Morocco in exchange for presence in the Nile Valley and the Suez Canal.

Relations between the two countries are 800 years old, dating back to 1213 – when King John ruled Britain and the Almohad State ruled all of the Maghreb and Andalusia from Marrakech. Relations turned into a military alliance between Queen Elizabeth I and King Ahmad Al-Mansur Al-Dhahabi, who defeated the Portuguese in the Battle of Three Kings (Battle of Wadi Al-Makhazin) in 1578.

The Catholic Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) was a bitter opponent of both Britain and Morocco, for religious and commercial reasons throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

"We are old friends and permanent allies," said Lord Stuart Pollack during a visit to Rabat last month by a parliamentary delegation of the Conservative Party. He was keen to visit the city of Laayoune in the Western Sahara – in a political gesture of support for Moroccan sovereignty over these southern regions.

London understands that supporting Morocco in the Western Sahara issue opens all doors to British companies, according to The Times.

A Moroccan south is a British option

Britain is currently planning to work with Morocco to build the largest renewable electricity grid, in line with energy transition plans and addressing climate change challenges, at an estimated cost of $22bn. It's the largest project of its kind in the transmission of thermal electricity that's generated by solar panels and wind farms.

Government documents revealed that "London is interested in the construction of submarine cables to supply clean, environmentally-friendly electricity from southern Morocco."

This is meant to help achieve UK energy security and support London's transition to carbon-free energy by 2035. It's also in line with the global ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and expand green economic activities according to commitments agreed in COP21's Paris Climate Accords.

Read more: How London is paving the way toward a circular future

Britain's Energy White Paper

Britain's Department of Energy Security has set up a technical task force to look into the details of a project to build four 3,800-km sub-Atlantic cables to meet the consumption of more than 7 million homes in the United Kingdom by 2030.

Simon Morrish, CEO of XLinks, which is carrying out the project in Morocco, said, "Enhancing energy security, in collaboration with a trusted friendly country, is a vital national interest to achieve Britain's goals about clean, environmentally-friendly energy."

"This helps secure the transition to sufficient renewable sources of low-cost electricity through undersea cables, which will deliver 3.6GW of thermal electricity via a high-voltage direct current link. This is needed for the country's economic security needs by 2027."

XLinks plans to generate carbon-free 10.5GW in the Western Sahara's Guelmim region through 12 million solar panels and 530 fans in wind farms, distributed within an area of more than 650m2, according to data by the British company.

Clean and durable energy

The competition for unconventional energy production is one of the best of XLinks, which plans to store 20GW/h in new generation, to provide 20 hours a day of green electricity, irrespective of the climatic conditions.

According to the project's technical study, Britain is forced to transform its energy system faster in order to boost the competitiveness of local industries and provide permanent electricity to homes at low prices.

Morocco's horizontal solar radiation is twice as high as that of the United Kingdom; also, it's 20% higher than the average of Western Mediterranean countries.

It is capable of supplying electricity to Britain even during periods of low wind and low solar radiation in northern Europe, ensuring stability in the quality of services and reducing the cost of electric transport.

A power reception station will be built in Alverdiscott, north of Devon's coasts; it will receive power from production stations near Tantan's coasts in southern Morocco.

The project includes the installation of four undersea cables in the vicinity of the Moroccan coast and at a depth of 700m, or about 2,300ft under the sea. The cables, which will pass by the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and France, won't be connected to any other network and would be exclusive to Great Britain's National Grid.

XLinks has contracted providers to build a subsea thermal cable production plant in the city of Hunterston, Scotland, to provide it with the necessary equipment for the project, which will need about 90T of British steel.

The project — the largest and longest-running subsea power project — includes advanced technology in switching high-tension to alternating current in order to connect to the British grid according to Northern Europe's grid standards. It's worth mentioning that Morocco is connected to the Spanish and Portuguese thermal electricity networks.

Moroccan leadership

The International Energy Organization has ranked Morocco among four countries in the world leading the development of renewable energies and green hydrogen; 120 projects, of which 60 are under construction, will produce 52% of Morocco's electricity needs, relying on wind farms and solar panels, especially at the Ouarzazate plant, the largest in the world.

These projects currently cover about 38% of domestic consumption, especially in major cities such as Marrakech.

According to a British document, Morocco has long coastlines on the Atlantic Ocean through which low-cost wind power can be produced; added to this are its vast deserts in the south, where solar energy can be produced.

This is an ideal situation for developing renewable energy projects that can provide cheap and high-quality energy and can generate 10 hours of electricity even in winter.

British companies are looking to develop energy storage systems in third-generation lithium batteries, which can be stored, shipped, and transported for energy purposes, including the operation of vehicles, aircraft, and yachts.

This is the second part of the partnership for renewable energies and green hydrogen, in which Germany is engaged through the Hydrogenious LOHC Technologies, which aspires to export 500T of green hydrogen per day to Europe.

The German project is located within walking distance of the British project on the outskirts of the port city of Tantan, where 15GW of green ammoniac needed by German factories is being produced.

Support for the project

XLinks passed its first financial test by collecting last month the £30mn needed to launch the project's executive stages. The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC (TAQA), one of the largest companies in the Middle East and North Africa developing various energies, joined the project's financiers by allocating AED 113mn (about $31mn).

The British Octopus Energy Ltd pumped in the amount of £5mn. This shows the diversity of shareholders and participants in the project – i.e. British, Gulf, and Moroccan support.

Jasim Husain Thabet, group CEO and managing director at TAQA, said his company's contribution to the British-Moroccan project "confirms our commitment to contribute to reducing carbon emissions while maintaining the security of energy supply – we own and operate a large-scale subsea project in Abu Dhabi and own and operate one of the largest solar PV plants in the world."

On his part, Greg Jackson, founder and CEO at Octopus, said "This partnership between XLinks, TAQA and Octopus allows us to develop one of the most distinguished energy projects in the world. It's a new global industry; the United Kingdom and its partners could be the first to activate it, helping to make Britain a leader in the transition to low-cost renewable energy."

Renewable energy more urgent than ever

Morocco's first renewable energy projects date back to November 2009, when in Ouarzazate, Morocco's King Mohammed VI, in the presence of then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, launched an ambitious $11bn clean electricity transition plan.

At the time, many people in the world didn't bet on producing electricity from the sun and wind, but the challenge posed by the Russian war on Ukraine left Europe with a difficult choice between overcoming Russia's gas blockade and winter frost on the one hand and securing clean energy for future generations on the other.