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.

The supercritical CO₂ power cycle (s-CO₂) is receiving much interest in the utilization of waste heat sources in the medium-to-high temperature range. The low compression work and highly regenerative layout result in high thermal efficiencies, even at moderate turbine inlet temperatures. The capability of heat extraction from the waste heat source is, however, limited because the heat input takes place over a limited temperature range close to the maximum cycle temperature. Accordingly, novel s-CO₂ layouts have been recently proposed, aimed at increasing the heat extraction from the heat source while preserving as much as possible the inherently high thermal efficiency. Among these, the most promising ones feature dual expansion, dual recuperation, and partial heating. This work concentrates on the conceptual design of these novel s-CO₂ layouts using a systematic approach based on the superimposition of elementary thermodynamic cycles. The overall structure of the single flow split with dual expansion (also called cascade), partial heating, and dual recuperated cycles is decomposed into elementary Brayton cycles to identify the building blocks for the achievement of a high performance in the utilization of waste heat sources. A thermodynamic optimization is set up to compare the performance of the three novel layouts for utilization of high temperature waste heat at 600 °C. The results show that the single flow split with a dual expansion cycle provides 3% and 15% more power compared to the partial heating and dual recuperated cycles, respectively, and 40% more power compared to the traditional single recuperated cycle used as the baseline. The separate evaluation of thermal efficiency and heat recovery effectiveness shows the main reasons behind the achievement of the highest performance, which are peculiar to each novel layout.

The emissions generated by the space and water heating of UK homes need to be reduced to meet the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The combination of solar (S) collectors with latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) technologies with phase change materials (PCM) can potentially help to achieve this goal. However, there is limited understanding of the environmental sustainability of LHTES technologies from a full life cycle perspective. This study assesses for the first time 18 environmental impacts of a full S-LHTES-PCM system from a cradle to grave perspective and compares the results with the most common sources of heat in UK homes. The results show that the system’s main environmental hotspots are the solar collector, the PCM, the PCM tank, and the heat exchanger. The main cause of most of the impacts is the extensive consumption of electricity and heat during the production of raw materials for these components. The comparison with other sources of household heat (biomass, heat pump, and natural gas) indicates that the S-LHTES-PCM system generates the highest environmental impact in 11 of 18 categories. However, a sensitivity analysis based on the lifetime of the S-LHTES-PCM systems shows that, when the lifetime increases to 40 years, almost all the impacts are significantly reduced. In fact, a 40-year S-LHTES-PCM system has a lower global warming potential than natural gas.

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.