Indian conglomerate Adani Group may be investing in renewables projects with a 10 GW capacity in Morocco to supply green ammonia to Europe, sources close to the matter told Bloomberg on Friday. The project, which would be developed in two 5 GW phases, would be used to supply clean energy to a green ammonia plant that would target exports to Europe, sources added. The wind and solar plants would be Adani’s largest clean energy project outside of India, and would more than triple Morocco’s already installed renewables capacity of 2.8 GW, according to data from Bloomberg.

Adani has already started making moves on the ground: Adani is in talks with Morocco’s state-owned phosphate producer OCP Group to produce carbon-less ammonia, other sources tell Bloomberg.

The group is also looking to raise USD 10 bn in low-cost debt and green bonds, Bloomberg reported last week. Some USD 6 bn have already been marked for refinancing high-cost borrowings, while the remaining USD 4 bn will be allocated to new projects, in an effort to lower the group’s burden of repayments, anonymous sources told the newswire.

GO DEEPER- What’s the Adani Group? Adani Group is a USD 200 bn Indian multinational conglomerate with investments in port management, power generation and transmission, renewables, mining, airport operations, natural gas, food processing and infrastructure. The company’s founder, Gautam Adani, is the richest person in Asia. Adani, whose company continues to invest in fossil fuels, wants to make his conglomerate a world leader in clean energy by 2030.

OTHERS HAVE THEIR EYES ON MOROCCO-

Hassan Allam Holding is looking to invest USD 50-150 mn in renewable energy and desalination plants, the company’s CEO Amr Allam told Bloomberg Asharq on the sidelines of the Choiseul Africa Business Forum.

Egypt’s Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) is ready to invest up to USD 100 mn in several of Morocco’s green sub-sectors over “the coming years,” CEO Naguib Sawiris told Bloomberg Asharq on the sidelines of Choiseul Africa Business Forum in Casablanca last week. These include electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and solar plants. Investing in EV charging stations “is the future,” given that Morocco is currently building an EV battery factory, Sawiris added.

Over in Europe, Germany provided Morocco with EUR 38 mn to its first green hydrogen plant, the German Embassy in Morocco tweeted last week and the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development reported (German). No further details about the loan have been shared so far.

Meanwhile, Spanish renewables firms are on the prowl: The Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) is leading a delegation of 10 Spanish renewable energy companies to Rabat on Tuesday, 25 October, ICEX said last week. The event aims to establish links between the countries’ private and public renewable energy players.

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BACKGROUND: THE INVESTMENT CASE-

Europe is hungry for MENA-sourced green hydrogen: Europe’s drive to source green energy has driven a gold rush in green hydrogen and ammonia investments — particularly in MENA. Some USD 180 bn worth of green hydrogen projects are in the region’s pipeline, according to data from MEED earlier this month. Green hydrogen is a key ingredient of green ammonia.

Most recently, Hassan Allam Holding and UAE’s Masdar could invest USD 10 bn in 10 years on their green hydrogen JV in Egypt, Hassan Allam Holding CEO Amr Allam said over the weekend, according to EnterpriseAM. The companies aim to build green hydrogen plants in Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), producing up to 480k tons of green hydrogen a year.

MOROCCO LEADS ON CLEAN ENERGY EXPORTS-

Morocco continues to lead regionally on supplying Europe with clean energy: In addition to supplying Spain and Portugal with 1.4 GW of electricity through two interconnections, Morocco plans to export 3.6 GW of electricity to the UK from solar and wind energy projects with a combined capacity of 10.5 GW by 2030. We reported last week that Morocco and the EU agreed to establish a “green partnership” that would see cooperation and “investment in green technology, renewable energy production, sustainable mobility, and clean production in industry.”