The world’s attention is currently focused on the energy transition to sustainable energy. The drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming, energy security, and the generalization of access to energy have contributed to the adoption of the Moroccan Energy Strategy, with a strong focus on renewable energy (RE). Morocco is notoriously poor in conventional primary fossil energy resources, with energy dependence on the order of 90%. In addition, the energy crisis that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, compounded with steady increase in demand, has heavily affected the security and stability of the country’s energy situation. The transition to RE by strongly engaging in the implementation of several solar, wind, and hydro energy projects has made the country the leader in RE in Africa. These projects benefit from the country’s excellent solar and wind energy potential. As a consequence, by 2030, the share of RE in the installed capacity is expected to reach 52%. An overview of the current situation of RE (particularly solar energy) in Morocco is provided, including the potentials, obstacles, challenges, and future perspectives. Thanks to its high solar potential, it is predictable that Morocco’s effort will be focused on this field: the Erasmus plus INNOMED project is a virtuous example of international cooperation, aiming at promoting solar energy through capacity building and the creation of solar energy networks, in synergy with EU Partners.

It’s very well known that the world's attention is currently focused on the energy transition. The energy security, in addition to the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming, and the generalization of the access to energy, have contributed to adoption of the Moroccan Energy Strategy with a strong focus on Renewable Energies (RE). Morocco is notoriously poor in conventional fossil primary energy resources with an energy dependence on the order of 90%. The energy crisis and that resulted from Covid-19 pandemic and the geopolitical conflicts, combined compounded with steady increase in demand have heavily affected the security and the stability of the country's energy situation. The transition to RE, by strongly engaging in the implementation of several solar, wind and hydro energy projects benefiting from the country's excellent solar and wind energy potential, has made the country the leader in RE in Africa. By 2030, the share of RE in the installed capacity is expected to reach 52%. In this work, an overview of the current situation of RE (particularly solar energy) in Morocco is provided, including, the potentials, obstacles and challenges, and future perspectives. Thanks to its high solar potential location, it’s predictable that Morocco effort will be focused on this field: the Erasmus Plus Innomed Project is a virtuous example of international cooperation, aiming at create a Solar Energy Network, in synergy with EU Partners.

Bifacial modules, highly valued in the global photovoltaic market since they are able to receive sunlight from both sides, generating up to 10-30% additional energy. They are integrated into various sectors, including building and notably Agrivoltaics. In this work, a coupled optical-thermal-electrical model was developed in MATLAB to simulate the energy performance and bifacial gain for a ground raised bifacial system. The model allows optimization as a function of PV system and bifacial module characteristics. A fixed, south-facing bifacial PV arrays composed of three rows assumed to be installed in Agadir, Morocco. The optical model is based on an analytical determination of view factors using the cross-string rule. These enable evaluation of irradiances received by both sides of modules, which are subsequently used to evaluate the energy yield of the system. Model validation was carried out based on various statistical error tests by comparing the results with simulation results generated by various softwares. The comparison shows a height accuracy, notably with 3DbifacialVF (R² 1, RMSE 0.03W/m² and R² 0.96, RMSE 12.4 W/m²) for front and rear side irradiance respectively. The DC energy generated by the system differs by less than 1% compared to PVsyst results. Sensitivity analysis revealed that all system parameters, particularly ground albedo, positively affect the bifacial gain. The bifacial gain increased from 10.6% to 20.1% as the ground albedo increased from 0.25 to 0.5.