Moroccan researchers say floating PV (FPV) installations on the country’s dams can simultaneously reduce evaporation losses and generate electricity, but the country lacks a regulatory framework to enable large-scale deployment.
According to a new floating PV (FPV) study, Morocco’s 58 controlled dams lose approximately 909 million cubic meters of water per year through evaporation over a total area of approximately 433 square kilometers. npj Clean energy by researchers from Abdelmalek Essaadi University and Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah (USMBA) in Morocco.
The paper, “Techno-economic feasibility analysis of floating photovoltaic systems on 58 Moroccan dams: energy potential, economic viability and water evaporation”, notes that covering just 1% of that surface with floating solar panels could make a substantial contribution to Morocco’s energy needs, while covering 40% could theoretically meet the country’s entire electricity demand of 42.38 TWh registered in 2023.
Lead researcher Prof. Aboubakr El Hammoumi said water conservation could be a stronger direct policy argument for floating solar than power generation, given Morocco’s prolonged drought.
“Given the current Moroccan context of recurring drought and increasing water stress in recent years, we believe that water conservation is a particularly compelling policy driver for FPV systems,” El Hammoumi told us. pv magazine. “In the Moroccan context, water conservation could arguably provide the strongest direct policy argument for FPV deployment, especially for reservoirs experiencing significant hydrological stress.”
Water first
Morocco’s water resources have fallen sharply over the past decade compared to previous decades, according to official Moroccan data cited by Agence France-Presse. The government is pursuing large-scale desalination as its primary response, targeting 1.7 billion cubic meters of annual desalinated water production by 2030. Morocco’s Ministry of Water has said floating solar energy represents a significant gain given the country’s increasingly scarce water resources.
The most advanced floating PV installation in Morocco is a pilot in the Oued Rmel reservoir near Tangier, launched by Tanger Med Group in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, targeting 13 MW and about 14% of the port complex’s energy needs, El Hammoumi said. Last year, Agence France-Presse reported that more than 400 floating platforms had been installed supporting several thousand panels, with the government planning to expand to 22,000 panels covering about 10 hectares of the 123-hectare reservoir.
It is estimated that solar panels can reduce evaporation at the site by approximately 30%. In addition, Energy Handle Maroc has commissioned Morocco’s first floating solar pilot – a 360 kW installation in Sidi Slimane – with approximately 800 panels and an estimated annual production of 644 MWh, El Hammoumi said.
Gap in regulations
Despite these projects, Morocco has no specific regulatory or procurement framework for floating PV on public hydraulic infrastructure, El Hammoumi said. Procurement models, regulatory guidelines and coordination between water authorities, energy regulators and developers still need to be defined before large-scale implementation becomes viable, he added.
The study’s return forecasts are described as speculative due to limited operational data. El Hammoumi said a viable financial model requires documented long-term operation and maintenance costs under real-world conditions, data on the reliability of mooring and anchoring systems under fluctuating water levels, performance degradation in aquatic environments, and insurance and life cycle costs specific to floating PV – none of which are currently well documented. The Oued Rmel project has not yet provided publicly available operational data to validate or challenge the assumptions of the national model, he said.
The research paper identifies pumped hydroelectric storage linked to existing dam infrastructure as a way to address floating PV intermittency. Morocco already operates pumped storage through the 350 MW Abdelmoumen pumped hydro station and the Afourer facility, mainly to support electricity grid flexibility, El Hammoumi said. The specific linking of floating solar with pumped hydro storage is at an early or conceptual stage in Morocco, he said.
Morocco deployed 204 MW of new utility-scale solar capacity in 2025, bringing cumulative utility-scale capacity to 1.29 GW, and started construction of the 305 MW Noor Atlas solar program in March 2026. The country targets a 52% share of renewable energy sources in installed electricity capacity by 2030.
This content is copyrighted and may not be reused. If you would like to collaborate with us and reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
