Even though I only made up 6% of the total global amount of renewable electricity in 20161, I am the fastest growing renewable energy source, and I inspire countries to become “solar superpowers”. 2
Morocco’s ambition to become a “solar superpower” is reflected in the 2009 Moroccan Solar Plan. As one of the first among the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries to establish renewable energy policy, the initiative aims to decrease its dependency on imported fossil fuels from countries like Algeria and Spain, which accounted for 96% of Morocco’s energy demand in 2015 and is expected to increase significantly over the next decade.3 4 It specifically turns the sun into a national resource by installing a capacity of 2000 MW solar energy, contributing to a 42% renewable energy share in 2020 together with wind energy.5 Moreover, the implementation of the policy will provide 14% of Morocco’s energy demands.6
The Noor (‘light’ in Arabic) Ouarzazate project consists of four power plants, of which three are CSP plants and one harnesses solar power using solar panels. The project has a capacity of 580 MW in total7, and would generate enough electricity for more than one million people.8 Though “[i]t is from Ouarzazate that Morocco begins its energy transition,” the Solar Plan includes four other sites for large-scale solar energy development.9
Morocco’s turn to renewable energy, however, should not be seen as an isolated ambition. Rather, the Plan “forms part of a global effort by national governments and transnational partnerships to integrate renewables into international energy markets … [and] draws on the globally circulating discourse of a sustainable energy transition”.10 These global sustainability efforts can subsequently have very tangible and negative implications for local livelihoods in which environmental transition efforts such as the Noor Ouarzazate project are set. The next blogpost will turn to this green discourse.
A glimpse of the Ouarzazate Project by the World Bank
My identity crisis: am I oppositional and do I resist power hierarchies, or do I reinforce inequalities?
The conversation around and implementation of climate change mitigation has predominantly focused on the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources as well as an increase in energy efficiency; this can be observed in national and regional objectives like the EU’s 2020 renewable energy targets1 and in the endorsements of environmental organizations, such as WWF’s 100% Renewable Energy By 2050 report.2 Along these lines, scholars in the Ecomodernist Manifesto clearly advocated for technology as our fix to avert climate devastation, calling for the decoupling of economic development from environmental impacts by resource-efficient and carbon-neutral technologies.3 Although this reliance on technology, which might be attributed to techno-optimism, has been challenged4, the dominant discourse still seems to be centered around an energy transition rather than substantial changes in lifestyle and consumption patterns – or the rejection of the neoliberal order.56
[W]e have to change radically, but within the contours of the existing state of the situation … so that nothing really has to change!
Erik Swyngedouw7
Even though renewable energy projects “may be seen as oppositional, with decentralized models of generation and distribution that could broaden access, refigure consumption practices, and challenge hierarchies of power in energy markets,” large-scale developments such as the Ouarzazate Solar Plants, which build upon existing infrastructure, “may serve to perpetuate the inequalities and environmental damage associated with incumbent energy regimes.”8
Not an apolitical project; attracting tourism (the irony!) with carbon-neutral technologies. Tweet by Lahcen Haddad, the Vice President of the Society for International Development.
Cantoni and Rignall have argued that reports focusing on the potential of renewable energy, such as the ones produced by the International Energy Agency and the African Development Bank, obscure the ‘technopolitics’ in which projects like the Noor Ouarzazate plants and the Solar Plan more broadly are embedded.9 Technopolitics can be defined as the “strategic practice of designing or using technology to constitute, embody, or enact political goals”10 and it is in this context, backed by the sustainability discourse, that Morocco’s green turn should be understood. How the Ouarzazate project serves broader economic and governance goals becomes evident when considering its connections to transcontinental development concept of DESERTEC (Figure 1), which aimed to export solar energy generated in the Sahara to Europe, and received support from the European Parliament.11 Claiming that only 1% of the area of global deserts could satisfy the global annual energy demand12, the DESERTEC concept envisioned linking Europe with the MENA region to help Europe meet its renewable energy targets, and was framed as a win-win situation for all economies involved.13 Even though the plan to export energy to Europe was abandoned in 2013, it represents “the malleability of a technopolitics that can direct energy governmentalities to other governance goals”.14
Figure 1. Sketch of possible infrastructure for a sustainable supply of power to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa by DESERTEC. Image by the DESERTEC Foundation, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5, 2011.
Technopolitics and the subsequent depoliticization of the Noor Ouarzazate project also raise important questions related to ‘green grabbing’. Green grabbing occurs when land and resources are appropriated in the name of environmental protection or sustainability, often transferring ownership from the poor into the hands of the powerful.15 This land could previously be owned privately or communally, and can be appropriated for a range of ‘green’ ends, such as biodiversity conservation or ecotourism. While the former claimants might not be completely banned from the area and its resources, green grabbing “does involve the restructuring of rules and authority over the access, use and management of resources, in related labour relations, and in human-ecological relationships, that may have profoundly alienating effects”.16 Specifically relevant to the case of the Ouarzazate solar plants is the logic of what Fairhead et al. refer to as ‘the economy of repair’ that underpins green grabbing: the notion “that unsustainable use ‘here’ [e.g. fossil fuel use in other parts of Morocco or Europe] can be repaired by sustainable practices ‘there’ [the generation of green energy in Ouarzazate], with one nature subordinated to the other.”17 This logic, combined with the framing of the land as marginal and underused, was pivotal in the land acquisition for the Ouarzazate project by the Moroccan government, which will be discussed in the next blogpost.
Solar power emerges in this context as a socio-ecological relation in which the fetishism of solar energy – especially its inexhaustibility, cleanliness, and immateriality – obscures the social relations necessary for its production.
Karen Rignall18
References 1. European Commission, No Date. “2020 Energy Strategy“. 2. World Wildlife Fund, 2011. The Energy Report: 100% Renewable Energy By 2050. 3. Asafu-Adjaye, J., Blomqvist, L., Brand, S., Brook, B., DeFries, R., Ellis, E., Foreman, C., Keith, D., Lewis, M., Lynas, M., Nordhaus, T., Pielke, R., Pritzker, R., Roy, J., Sagoff, M., Shellenberger, M., Stone, R. & Teague, P., 2015. An Ecomodernist Manifesto. 4. E.g. by Caradonna, J., Borowy, I., Green, T., Victor, P.A., Cohen, M., Gow, A., Ignatyeva, A., Schmelzer, M., Vergragt, P., Wangel, J., Dempsey, J., Orzanna, R., Lorek, S., Axmann, J., Duncan, R., Norgaard, R.B., Brown, H.S. & Heinberg, R., 2015. A Call to Look Past An Ecomodernist Manifesto: A Degrowth Critique. 5. Cantoni, R. & Rignall, K., 2019. Kingdom of the Sun: a critical, multiscalar analysis of Morocco’s solar energy strategy. Energy Research & Social Science, 51, pp.20–31. 6. Swyngedouw, E., 2013. The Non-political Politics of Climate Change. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 12(1), pp.1–8. 7. Ibid.: p.4. 8. Rignall, K.E., 2016. Solar power, state power, and the politics of energy transition in pre-Saharan Morocco. Environment and Planning A, 48(3): p.542. 9. Cantoni, R. & Rignall, K., 2019. Kingdom of the Sun: a critical, multiscalar analysis of Morocco’s solar energy strategy. Energy Research & Social Science, 51, pp.20–31. 10. Ibid.: p.20. 11. Ibid. 12. TREC, 2009. Clean Power from Deserts: The DESERTEC Concept for Energy, Water and Climate Security. 13. Cantoni, R. & Rignall, K., 2019. Kingdom of the Sun: a critical, multiscalar analysis of Morocco’s solar energy strategy. Energy Research & Social Science, 51, pp.20–31. 14. Ibid.: p.24. 15. Fairhead, J., Leach, M. & Scoones, I., 2012. Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature? Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(2), pp.237–261. 16. Ibid.: p.239. 17. Ibid.: p.242. 18. Rignall, K.E., 2016. Solar power, state power, and the politics of energy transition in pre-Saharan Morocco. Environment and Planning A, 48(3): p.541.
Unfortunately, it appears that one of the largest solar projects worldwide, in one of the sunniest places, with a capacity to generate 580 MW of me, is entrenched in unequal power dynamics, marginalization of the local population, and land dispossession. Moreover, the Moroccan government is extended its grip on territory and resources, facilitated by a neoliberal sustainability discourse and colonial environmental narratives. Given the immense challenge of mitigating climate change and the large role that I will likely play, the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station is nevertheless a good project to derive recommendations for future solar development from. These include, but are not limited to1:
Conducting a participatory stakeholder analysis before the start of the development, to identify the needs of communities
Increasing the stakeholder engagement, to ensure that vulnerable groups in particular are consulted
Promoting women’s empowerment and involvement with the project, as employment and income are predominantly captured by men
Allocating parts of the revenue from the project directly to local communities, instead of a central government
Closely monitoring regional water availability and ensuring the ability to quickly respond to decreased water levels.
Perhaps then, the light in the desert will be shining bright for everyone.
Light in the Desert? 
