The world bank of energy policy makers and practitioners have meet to share knowledge and experience of large clean energy projects. With many countries around the world investing in concentrated solar power or CSP, many are finding speed humps in the form of inadequate policies, funding issues, permit problems, unaffordability and more.

The groups from Morocco, Egypt, South Africa and India, as well as officials from financial institutions and European donor agencies, gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco in October. The meeting consisted of a two-day workshop, hosted by Mustapha Bakkoury, CEO of Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), and also a member of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Advisory Board, addressed these questions:

– What is the right policy and regulatory framework for utility-scale solar power?

– How to balance domestic manufacturing with deployment of different solar technologies? What are the challenges and opportunities?

– How to integrate solar power into power systems?

– What are the optimal pre-requisites for development of large scale solar projects?

– How to structure appropriate financing and risk management instruments under various development schemes?

The workshop was designed to help nations provide cleaner energy in a more viable way. By sharing knowledge and experience, fewer mistakes are made and maximum efficiency is achieved. However, most will agree that stronger policies need to be made to support new CSP and other utility scale clean energy projects.

“Concentrated solar technology is suitable to address our energy security and climate change challenges,” Mustapha Bakkoury said in his opening remarks. “However, CSP needs support to become competitive until the development of large scale CSP projects in an innovative and effective operational mode can provide the necessary economies of scale to bring cost down.”

“Making renewable energy viable is essential to achieve the SE4All goals,” said S. Vijay Iyer, Director of the World Bank’s Sustainable Energy Department. “Knowledge exchange among countries that have accumulated knowledge and experience on critical aspects of large solar projects is the best way to build capacity and learn from experience in this emerging field.”