COP27: Morocco, European Partners Sign MoU on Sustainable Electricity Trade Roadmap

Sharm el-Sheikh – On the sidelines of the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (November 6-18), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Sustainable Electricity Trade Roadmap “SET Roadmap” was signed between Morocco and Germany, Spain, France and Portugal.

The signing ceremony took place in the presence of Leila Benali, Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany, Stephane Crouzat, Ambassador of France in charge of negotiations on climate change, renewable energies and climate risk prevention, and Manuela Franco, Ambassador of Portugal to Egypt.

The ceremony was also attended by Álvaro Iranzo Gutiérrez, Ambassador of Spain to Egypt, Christian Berger, Ambassador Head of the European Commission Delegation to Egypt, Nasser Kamel, Ambassador Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean and Paul Noumba Um, Regional Director MENA for Infrastructure of the World Bank.

This memorandum of understanding aims to further strengthen the strategic partnership linking the Kingdom and its European partners in the field of energy, and is part of the Sustainable Electricity Trade Roadmap (SET Roadmap), established by Morocco, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal at the COP22 held in Marrakech in 2016, and which aims to open up the renewable energy markets to each other.

It also follows the signing of a joint declaration in Brussels in December 2018 setting out plans to remove commercial and physical barriers to corporate power purchase agreements (CPPAs).

This MOU will allow to continue working towards the integration of the green electricity markets of the 5 countries. Priority will be given to the development of cross-border green Corporate PPAs, which are bilateral contracts between producers and industrialists for the sale of electricity from renewable sources that are attracting growing interest from large industrialists, including those located on the European continent.

During this ceremony, Benali stressed that the signing of this memorandum of understanding marks the common desire of the five countries to promote the exchange on a larger scale of clean and environmentally friendly energy.

She added that the MoU is timely to support the various measures taken on both sides of the Mediterranean to encourage the production and consumption of clean energy.