Long before the UK and its European neighbors were plunged into crisis by the closure of Russian gas pipelines, the idea was in the making as entrepreneurs sought to harness the sun’s power by capturing it in Moroccan solar farms and transferring the energy to refrigerator. climates of the British Isles. The fact that the idea is the brainchild of one of the country’s top business figures gave it traction before household energy prices tripled. Former Tesco chief executive Sir Dave Lewis has announced major plans to build the world’s longest undersea electricity cable to carry renewable energy from Morocco directly to the UK’s national grid in 2018. Now company Xlinks says its solar and wind farm, as well as 15,000 kilometers of underwater cables, will enable it to provide enough electricity to power more than seven million British homes. Launched weeks before the UK hosts Cop26 in Glasgow, Xlinks’ UK-Morocco Power Project proudly joins Britain’s growing clean energy ambitions. But in today’s energy-crisis Europe, says Xlinks chief executive Simon Morrish The National the project has taken on an even more important role. A “passion for the environment” and a desire “to help move the needle on climate change” were the main reasons he co-founded the company, but Mr Morrish says the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February added more urgency character in the development of renewable energy sources. Turbines open. Photo: Xlinks “Understanding the malevolent influence that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin owns Europe and holds our energy supply” had long made the businessman aware of the unpleasant commitment of the world’s second largest gas supplier to end users. Ofgem said the wholesale price of natural gas has risen by 68 per cent since the war began in February and by 266 per cent in the past 12 months. “That makes what we’re doing here even more important and vital to be done quickly. The finances stack up amazingly up front, but now they’re overwhelming,” says Mr Morrish. Harnessing the sun’s energy may not be new — but it’s cheap enough to scale and transport across borders. Last year, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) found that the cost of large-scale solar had fallen by more than 85 percent in less than a decade. Renewables are significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest energy source, and the current energy crisis looks set to widen this price gap further. Countries like Morocco, with plenty of space and sun, and an ambitious national strategy to become a global climate leader, are poised to benefit from a renewed focus on clean energy.
Leading the charge for clean energy from the desert
Morocco’s national action on climate change dates back to the mid-2000s, when the country took the decision to become a regional leader in clean energy and promote massive renewable energy projects. In 2009, the North African nation set out an ambitious energy plan that aimed for 42 percent of total installed power capacity to be renewable energy by 2020. A number of major renewable energy projects have been launched, including the Noor-Ouarzazate complex, the world’s largest solar power plant. A parabolic dish field in Quarzazate, Morocco, over 3,000 hectares in the desert, makes it the largest solar thermal plant in the world. Getty Images Although its 2020 target Morocco by 5%, it has since pledged to increase renewables in the electricity mix to 52% by 2030, consisting of solar, wind and hydro. — Madam Minister Benali… plans for renewable energy / environmental impact The Xlinks project will lead to even more mirrors looking at the sky above the Sahara, with a new power generation facility including a solar and wind farm on an area of 1,500 square kilometers in the Guelmim Oued Noun region. The combined facility will generate 10.5 gigawatts of power, of which 3.6 gigawatts are planned to be transmitted to the UK to meet up to 8 per cent of electricity demand by 2030. Xlinks says the £16bn project is expected to create 10,000 jobs in Morocco and 1,350 in the UK. XLCC will produce the world’s longest submarine cables to be laid from Morocco to England It is also in line with the UK energy strategy announced by former prime minister Boris Johnson in April to advance the government’s plans to decarbonise the electricity system by 2035 and become net-zero by 2050. Realizing how “rapid reliance on foreign energy can hurt British families and businesses”, the government has declared its intention to accelerate the transition away from oil and gas. While offshore wind farms, including what will be the world’s largest when it is completed in Yorkshire next year, are part of the UK’s long-term shift to cleaner energy, there is a need for other renewables. Environmentalist Jono Adams says The National that the UK-Morocco project is a commendable example of how to harness the significant potential of solar and wind energy in a particular location. “This is an important principle that needs to be applied to generation in general around the world, to grow production in the most efficient way,” says the director of global sustainability consultancy Anthesis. However, Mr Adams says that “simply taking resources from the global south for use in the global north” does little to correct the highlighted problem. The criticism echoes questions raised about the fairness of asking less industrialized countries to curb their energy consumption so that industrialized nations can fill up.
Power from the Sahara to Devon with the world’s longest undersea cables
Morocco’s natural resources produce three times as much energy as the UK’s and once complete, the project will be able to meet 8 per cent of Britain’s electricity needs. But if production was simple and cheap enough, the challenge came in figuring out how to store and transport it. Four rows of 3,800 km high-voltage direct current (HVDC) undersea cables are the way. Mr Morrish says it quickly became apparent to the UK green energy company that demand for these cables was too high for suppliers to meet their project requirements. So the group founded another company: XLCC. Construction of HVDC submarine cables will begin at their first site in Hudderston, Scotland, in September, with the aim of producing their first cable in mid-2026. However, battery capacity and converter stations are other critical parts of the project that are in short supply. Mr Morrish says they don’t need to install batteries until 2026, giving them “plenty of time to source and build additional battery capacity”, but growing global demand for lithium – a key ingredient in batteries – could create other supply problems . The XLCC factory. Photo: XLCC Meanwhile, a physical undersea survey is already underway to see where to lay the cables, which will be submerged in the territorial waters of Spain, Portugal and France before reaching the National Grid in Devon. Xlinks still needs to get licenses from European countries, but Mr Morrish has a surprisingly “idealistic” view of it. “I just think, why not license this much renewable energy to help the end? Would you want to be a country standing in the way of such environmental benefit?’
Britain’s renewable energy revolution
The company isn’t asking much more from the UK government either. The project has been developed without subsidies and Mr Morrish says they are not needed, insisting it is “down to business leaders” to find energy solutions. But what Xlinks needs from the government is a guaranteed 25-year absorption of the generated energy, which Mr Morrish says the company is currently negotiating. Britain’s ambitious plans to quintuple offshore wind power by 2030 are underway, with 42 offshore wind farms already operating, providing 11 gigawatts of power and another 93 under development or planning to provide 95 gigawatts. If these projects make UK-Morocco seem redundant, Mr Morrish is quick to point out that despite the reputation of British weather, it’s not always windy. “Part of our deal with the UK government is to be able to predict peak times on 99% of days,” he says. “So if it’s a cold, cold, February afternoon when there’s no wind in the UK and a network under pressure, we’ll always be there. So this is hugely valuable to the UK grid.” Mr Morrish says the impact on the underwater environment is “negligible”, likening the process to “plowing a strip of field” with a machine that will liquefy the seabed by pumping high-pressure water to allow the cables to sink into a safe casing . . While no one enjoys cutting back on their energy use, rising prices have forced a calculation that Mr. Adams, like many others, says is necessary to reverse climate damage. “To get to net zero, we need to reduce energy consumption while increasing the use of renewables,” says Mr Adams. Updated: September 09, 2022, 6:01 pm
