Meet Africa’s largest offshore wind project

June 23, 2025

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Morocco has unveiled plans for its first offshore wind farm, a 1,000 MW project near the coastal city of Essaouira. Construction is set to begin by 2029. This comes at a time when Morocco is about to launch Africa's first wind turbine blade manufacturing plant, which has an annual production capacity of 600 sets of turbines.

  • The Essaouira project is one of the first investments by the Mediterranean Blue Partnership (MBP), a multi-donor fund created to support the sustainable blue economy across the southern Mediterranean and Red Sea regions.

  • Morocco's low labour costs will reduce turbine production expenses. This, combined with shorter supply chain costs, has the potential to reduce wind energy costs and increase investor appeal.

  • Our take: Building offshore projects can be quite challenging with strong winds and demands specialised equipment which can add to project costs… Read more (2 min)

China’s Sunrev Solar and the Egyptian government have launched a $200 million industrial complex in Ain Sokhna, aiming to localise the full solar manufacturing value chain. The project will deliver 2,000 MW of solar cells and modules in phase one. Phase two will focus on capacity expansion and raw material production, including silicon ingots and wafers.

  • Egypt’s solar manufacturing capacity is projected to exceed 7,000 MW in the near term. This project joins the 5,000 MW facility in a Suez free zone under development by EliTe Solar, a Singapore-based company, among others.

  • Special Economic Zones (SEZs), such as Egypt’s SCZONE and South Africa’s Northern Cape SEZ, help to de-risk solar manufacturing investments via tax breaks, streamlined regulations, and technology transfer partnerships.

  • Our take: SEZs give the continent a shot at transforming its solar industry from import-dependent to manufacturing-driven… Read more (2 min)

The announcements in the month of June for new renewable energy projects under development totalled more than 14,000 MW and 4,500 MWh of battery energy storage. This is 4,000 MW less than in May, but it continues the general trend of increased focus on renewable projects. At least 2,500 MW of projects were completed, mainly in Egypt and South Africa.

  • Every month, Renewable Rising tracks announcements of clean energy projects under development in Africa. Since February 2025, we have listed 170 projects totalling more than 35,000 MW and 10,000 MWh of battery storage systems.

  • The month of June marked the first inclusion of a wind + battery energy storage project in our tracker. This milestone was highlighted by a $23 million financing package to support the Cabeólica Phase II Expansion Project in Cabo Verde.

  • Our take: African countries are streamlining policies and regulations… Read more (2 min)

CEO of the Mission 300 Accelerator, sw(first from left), at the recently concluded Africa Energy Forum event in South Africa

 

Events

🗓️ Attend a conference on hybrid power systems and renewable energy (Jun 28)

🗓️ Register for a discussion on strategies for manufacturers (Jul 15)

🗓️ Sign up for the Solar Africa Kenya 2025 event (Jun 26)

Jobs

💼 Apply for AFDB’s Principal Legal Counsel position (Ivory Coast)

🦺 Become the Sola Group’s O&M Administrator (South Africa)

👩🏻‍💻 Join BURN as an Automation and AI Innovation Lead (Kenya)

Various 

💵 Open Access Energy secures $1.8 million seed funding

🔥 $77 million investment fuels BURN's African expansion into Zambia

⚡ Senegal, Kenya lead AfDB's 2024 Electricity Regulatory Index

Seen on LinkedIn 

Dan Murphy, Managing Director at Catalyst Energy Advisors, says, “I’m convinced that the off-grid solar industry has reached a moment of clarity: the only way to achieve lasting impact is by refocusing on customer success.”