Morocco Renewable Energy Project looks to Germany instead of UK

The company that is behind the multi-billion pound project to export electricity from Morocco has considered an alternative option of sending electricity to Germany rather than Britain.

Xlinks’ leaders, including Sir Dave Lewis, former Tesco CEO, plan to build 4.5 Gigawatts (GW) of wind farms, 7 GW of solar farms, and 5 GW of battery storage in the Moroccan desert.

The company aims to supply power to Britain through four 2,360 mile cables in Devon. The company claims that it can reliably supply 3.6GW or around 8 per cent of UK demands, 20 hours aday.

Bloomberg first reported that Xlinks was considering supplying power to Germany. However, planning documents published by ENTSO-E – the European transmission system operator – indicate otherwise. The company may provide a connector that would serve both Britain and Germany, or only the UK.

The current plan calls for the cables to run along the west coasts of Iberia, France and Devon before reaching the shores. The documents submitted to ENTSOE show that the German connector would travel up the Channel before arriving in northwestern Germany, near the border with Netherlands. It would then connect to the German grid.

Xlinks is still in the planning stage, but has already raised funds for the project, including from TotalEnergies the French oil and Gas group, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, and Octopus Energy the British provider.

In September Britain classified the development as a “nationally significant infrastructure project”, thus streamlining the planning process, but it is still seeking a contract to guarantee a fixed electricity price, known as a contract-for-difference. These contracts are used to guarantee that large renewable energy projects receive sufficient investment. Hinkley Point C in Somerset, UK has a contract that is set at £92.50 / megawatt-hour in 2012.

Xlinks was seeking an inflation-linked agreement at £48/MWh for 2012, but in September last year it stated that it required between £56 to £64/MWh, which is equivalent to between £77 and £87/MWh.

The project cost rose between £20 billion to £22 billion in autumn last year, due to an increase in commodity costs and inflation in the supply chain of the company, as well a decline in the value the pound.

Simon Morrish, 49 and chief executive officer of Xlinks at the time, stated that “long-term rates” were the primary cause of the rise in the project’s cost. He said: “I do not think it’s much cheaper than using gas, but isn’t zero carbon.” “If we’re going to go zero carbon, it is much cheaper than burning gasoline and doing carbon storage and capture.” We are also two-thirds the cost of nuclear.”

He said that the company was aiming to deliver electricity from the first pair of cables 1.8GW for the project by 2030 and the other pair in 2032.

Xlinks stated: “Xlinks First has a 100 percent focus on the UK, which is moving towards achieving financial close. Xlinks Ltd, however, is evaluating other markets, including Germany, to see if they can be linked. It is not an either/or situation, but rather a combination. Our vision was that this project could serve as a template for other links to support the transition towards a sustainable and clean energy. In this context, we are exploring additional routes to markets such as Germany.”