astronomy

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ouarzazate Solar Power Station rather than just read about it. In short: Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system located in Ouarzazate Province in Morocco, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant including a field of 2 million giant mirrors.

Key takeaways

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ouarzazate Solar Power Station to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ouarzazate Solar Power Station from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system located in Ouarzazate Province in Morocco, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant including a field of 2 million giant mirrors. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project was planned to produce 582 MW. The total project's estimated cost is around $9 billion. The auxiliary diesel fuel system is used to maintain the minimal temperatures of the heat transfer fluid during times when the sun does not shine (including at night), to start the turbine and synchronize it with the electrical grid, and other auxiliary functions. The plant was completed in four phases and covers an area of over 3,000 hectares (12 sq mi). It can store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, allowing for production of electricity into the night.

Development The project was developed by ACWA Power with the help of the Spanish consortium TSK-Acciona-Sener and is the first in a series of planned developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex by the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN). The project received preferential financing from several sources including the Clean Technology Fund, African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank; the EIB has loaned over 300 million euros to the project.

Location The facility lies in Southern Morocco, near the ancient fortified town Ait-Ben-Haddou, near Ouarzazate.

Noor I

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS) – Phase 1, also referred to as Noor I CSP, has an installed capacity of 160 MW. It was connected to the Moroccan power grid on 5 February 2016. It covers 450 hectares (1,112 acres) and is expected to deliver 370 GWh per year. The plant is a parabolic trough type with a molten salt storage for 3 hours of low-light producing capacity. The cost of the project when it began operations was $3.9 billion. It uses half a million mirrors. The design uses wet cooling and the need to regularly clean the reflectors means that the water use is high – 1.7 million m3 per year or 4.6 liters per kWh. Water usage is more than double the water usage of a wet cooled coal power station and 23 times the water use per kWh of a dry cooled coal power station, though life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of solar thermal plants show that generating comparable energy from coal typically releases around 20 times more carbon dioxide than renewable sources. The electricity was to be sold at $0.19 /kWh.

Noor II Noor II CSP is the second phase of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station. It is a 200 MW CSP solar plant using parabolic troughs. It has a seven hour storage capacity. It covers an area of 680 hectares (1,680 acres) and is expected to supply 600 GWh per year. Construction started in February 2016 and the plant was commissioned in January 2018. It uses a dry cooling system to decrease water use. The project will supply one million people with electricity; it is estimated to save 750,000 tons in CO2 emissions.

Noor III

Noor III CSP is the third part of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station. Noor 3 is a different design, the mirrors are mounted horizontally on platforms which are supported by ten metre columns. Each platform is roughly the size of a tennis court. The panels follow the light, reflecting it to a 250-metre-tall (820 ft) solar tower. It is a 150 MW gross CSP solar project using a solar power tower with 7 hours energy storage. It covers an area of 550 hectares (1,359 acres) and it is expected to supply 500 GW·h per year. It uses a dry cooling system to decrease water use. The CSP tower mirror field was commissioned in March 2018. Noor III is the fifth ever built utility-scale CSP tower, but the second with energy storage, after the 125 MW gross Crescent Dunes. At 150 MW Noor III is now the most powerful CSP tower unit built. In September 2018 the CSP tower unit was first time synchronized to the power grid. In December Noor III completed a 10-day reliability test demonstrating that the project can provide continuous rated power even in the absence of sunlight. The model HE54 heliostat has 54 mirrors, each with a total reflective surface of 178.5 square metres (1,921 sq ft). The solar field has 7400 of such mirrors. The tower is 250 metres (820 ft) high. Noor III suffered a molten salt leak in 2024, causing a loss of $47m.

Noor IV Noor IV is a 72 MW photovoltaic power station which was completed in 2018. The total investment in this project is 750 million MAD or about 78 million USD.

Water use Water consumption for the Ouarzazate Noor complex is estimated at 2.5 to 3 million m3 per year for one wet-cooling project (Noor I) and two dry-cooling projects (Noor II and III). The water is sourced from the Mansour Eddahbi dam via pipeline. Water is needed for cooling, as well as to clean the reflectors regularly with high-pressure water hoses and brushes from trucks.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ouarzazate Solar Power Station

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ouarzazate Solar Power Station claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ouarzazate Solar Power Station before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ouarzazate Solar Power Station ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ouarzazate Solar Power Station

In research: Ouarzazate Solar Power Station appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ouarzazate Solar Power Station is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2016 establishments in Morocco, 21st-century architecture in Morocco, Energy infrastructure completed in 2016, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ouarzazate Solar Power Station outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ouarzazate Solar Power Station means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ouarzazate Solar Power Station out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in simple terms?

Why does Ouarzazate Solar Power Station matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ouarzazate Solar Power Station?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ouarzazate Solar Power Station.